“I was talkin’ with Father Kelly about it afther Hogan wint out.  ’Were they all so bad, thim men that I’ve been brought up to think so gloryous?’ says I.  ‘They were men,’ says Father Kelly.  ’Ye mustn’t believe all ye hear about thim, no matther who says it,’ says he.  ’It’s a thrait iv human nature to pull down th’ gr-reat an’ sthrong.  Th’ hero sthruts through histhry with his chin up in th’ air, his scipter in his hand an’ his crown on his head.  But behind him dances a boot-black imitatin’ his walk an’ makin’ faces at him.  Fame invites a man out iv his house to be crowned f’r his gloryous deeds, an’ sarves him with a warrant f’r batin’ his wife.  ‘Tis not in th’ nature iv things that it shudden’t be so.  We’d all perish iv humilyation if th’ gr-reat men iv th’ wurruld didn’t have nachral low-down thraits.  If they don’t happen to possess thim, we make some up f’r thim.  We allow no man to tower over us.  Wan way or another we level th’ wurruld to our own height.  If we can’t reach th’ hero’s head we cut off his legs.  It always makes me feel aisier about mesilf whin I r-read how bad Julius Cayzar was.  An’ it stimylates compytition.  If gr-reatness an’ goodness were hand in hand ‘tis small chance anny iv us wud have iv seem’ our pitchers in th’ pa-apers.’

“An’ so it is that the battles ye win, th’ pitchers ye paint, th’ people ye free, th’ childher that disgrace ye, th’ false step iv ye’er youth, all go thundherin’ down to immortality together.  An’ afther all, isn’t it a good thing?  Th’ on’y bi-ography I care about is th’ one Mulligan th’ stone-cutter will chop out f’r me.  I like Mulligan’s style, f’r he’s no flatthrer, an’ he has wan model iv bi-ography that he uses f’r old an’ young, rich an’ poor.  He merely writes something to th’ gin’ral effect that th’ deceased was a wondher, an’ lets it go at that.”

“Which wud ye rather be, famous or rich?” asked Mr. Hennessy.

“I’d like to be famous,” said Mr. Dooley, “an’ have money enough to buy off all threatenin’ bi-ographers.”

WOMAN SUFFRAGE

“I see be th’ pa-apers that th’ ladies in England have got up in their might an’ demanded a vote.”

“A what?” cried Mr. Hennessy.

“A vote,” said Mr. Dooley.

“Th’ shameless viragoes,” said Mr. Hennessy.  “What did they do?”

“Well, sir,” said Mr. Dooley, “an immense concoorse iv forty iv thim gathered in London an’ marched up to th’ House iv Commons, or naytional dormytory, where a loud an’ almost universal snore proclaimed that a debate was ragin’ over th’ bill to allow English gintlemen to marry their deceased wife’s sisters befure th’ autopsy.  In th’ great hall iv Rufus some iv th’ mightiest male intellecks in Britain slept undher their hats while an impassioned orator delivered a hem-stitched speech on th’ subject iv th’ day to th’ attintive knees an’ feet iv th’ ministhry.  It was into this here assimbly