“Well,” said Mr. Hennessy, “I’m kind iv sorry f’r th’ la-ads with th’ bows an’ arrows.  Maybe they think they’re pathrites.”

“Divvle th’ bit iv difference it makes what they think, so long as we don’t think so,” said Mr. Dooley.  “It’s what Father Kelly calls a case iv mayhem et chew ’em.  That’s Latin, Hinnissy; an’ it manes what’s wan man’s food is another man’s pizen.”

RUDYARD KIPLING.

“I think,” said Mr. Dooley, “th’ finest pothry in th’ wurruld is wrote be that frind iv young Hogan’s, a man be th’ name iv Roodyard Kipling.  I see his pomes in th’ pa-aper, Hinnissy; an’ they’re all right.  They’re all right, thim pomes.  They was wan about scraggin’ Danny Deever that done me a wurruld iv good.  They was a la-ad I wanst knew be th’ name iv Deever, an’ like as not he was th’ same man.  He owed me money.  Thin there was wan that I see mintioned in th’ war news wanst in a while,—­th’ less we f’rget, th’ more we raymimber.  That was a hot pome an’ a good wan.  What I like about Kipling is that his pomes is right off th’ bat, like me con-versations with you, me boy.  He’s a minyit-man, a r-ready pote that sleeps like th’ dhriver iv thruck 9, with his poetic pants in his boots beside his bed, an’ him r-ready to jump out an’ slide down th’ pole th’ minyit th’ alarm sounds.

“He’s not such a pote as Tim Scanlan, that hasn’t done annything since th’ siege iv Lim’rick; an’ that was two hundherd year befure he was bor-rn.  He’s prisident iv th’ Pome Supply Company,—­fr-resh pothry delivered ivry day at ye’er dure.  Is there an accident in a grain illyvator?  Ye pick up ye’er mornin’ pa-aper, an’ they’se a pome about it be Roodyard Kipling.  Do ye hear iv a manhole cover bein’ blown up?  Roodyard is there with his r-ready pen. ’’Tis written iv Cashum-Cadi an’ th’ book iv th’ gr-reat Gazelle that a manhole cover in anger is tin degrees worse thin hell.’  He writes in all dialects an’ anny language, plain an’ fancy pothry, pothry f’r young an’ old, pothry be weight or linyar measuremint, pothry f’r small parties iv eight or tin a specialty.  What’s the raysult, Hinnissy?  Most potes I despise.  But Roodyard Kipling’s pothry is aisy.  Ye can skip through it while ye’re atin’ breakfuss an’ get a c’rrect idee iv th’ current news iv th’ day,—­who won th’ futball game, how Sharkey is thrainin’ f’r th’ fight, an’ how manny votes th’ pro-hybitionist got f’r gov’nor iv th’ State iv Texas.  No col’ storage pothry f’r Kipling.  Ivrything fr-resh an’ up to date.  All lays laid this mornin’.

“Hogan was in to-day readin’ Kipling’s Fridah afthernoon pome, an’ ’tis a good pome.  He calls it ‘Th’ Thruce iv th’ Bear.’  This is th’ way it happened:  Roodyard Kipling had just finished his mornin’ batch iv pothry f’r th’ home-thrade, an’ had et his dinner, an’ was thinkin’ iv r-runnin’ out in th’ counthry f’r a breath iv fr-resh air, whin in come a tillygram sayin’ that th’ Czar iv Rooshia had sint