down th’ brutal Rooshyan moojiks with masheen guns.  An’ fin’lly, whin th’ Japs had gone a thousand miles into Rooshyan territory an’ were about busted an’ ayether had to stop fightin’ or not have car fare home, our worthy Prisident, ye know who I mean, jumped to th’ front an’ cried:  ’Boys, stop it.  It’s gone far enough to satisfy th’ both iv ye.’  An th’ angel iv peace brooded over th’ earth an’ crowed lustily.

“Day after day th’ pa-apers come out an’ declared, in th’ column next to th’ half-page ad iv th’ Koppenheimer bargain sale, that th’ defeat iv Rooshya was a judgment iv th’ Lord on th’ Czar.  If ye saw a Jap annywhere, ye asked him to take a dhrink.

“Hogan talked about nawthin’ else.  They were a wondherful little people.  How they had diviloped!  Nawthin’ in th’ histhry iv th’ wurruld was akel to th’ way they’d come up.  They cud shoot straighter an’ oftener thin anny other nation.  A Jap cud march three hundred miles a day f’r eight days with nawthin’ to eat.  They were highly civvylized.  It was an old civvylization but not tainted be age.  Millyons iv years befure th’ first white man set fut in Milwaukee th’ Japs undhershtud th’ mannyfacther iv patent wringers, sewin’-masheens, reapers, tillyphones, autymobills, ice-cream freezers, an’ all th’ other wondhers iv our boasted Westhren divilopement.

“Their customs showed how highly they’d been civvylized.  Whin a Jap soldier was defeated, rather thin surrendher an’ be sint home to have his head cut off, he wud stab himself in th’ stummick.  Their treatment iv women put thim on a higher plane thin ours.  Cinchries ago befure th’ higher iddycation iv women was dhreamed iv in this counthry, th’ poorest man in Japan cud sind his daughter to a tea-house, which is th’ same as our female siminaries, where she remained till she gradyated as th’ wife iv some proud noble iv th’ old Samuri push.

“Their art had ours thrimmed to a frazzle.  Th’ Jap artist O’Casey’s pitcher iv a lady leanin’ on a river while a cow walked up her back, was th’ loveliest thing in th’ wurruld.  They were th’ gr-reatest athletes iver known.  A Japanese child with rickets cud throw Johnson over a church.  They had a secret iv rasslin’ be which a Jap rassler cud blow on his opponent’s eyeball an’ break his ankle.  They were th’ finest soordsmen that iver’d been seen.  Whin a Japanese soordsman wint into a combat he made such faces that his opponent dhropped his soord an’ thin he uttered a bloodcurdlin’ cry, waved his soord four hundhred an’ fifty times over th’ head iv th’ victim or in th’ case iv a Samuri eight hundred an’ ninety-six, give a whoop resimblin’ our English wurrud ‘tag,’ an’ clove him to th’ feet.  As with us, on’y th’ lower classes engaged in business.  Th’ old arrystocracy distained to thrade but started banks an’ got all th’ money.  Th’ poor man had a splendid chance.  He cud devote his life to paintin’ wan rib iv a fan, f’r which he got two dollars, or he cud become a cab horse.  An’ even in th’ wan branch iv art that Westhren civvylization is supposed to excel in, they had us beat miles.  They were th’ gr-reatest liars in th’ wurruld an’ formerly friends iv th’ Prisidint.