“How can I know annything, whin I haven’t puzzled out what I am mesilf.  I am Dooley, ye say, but ye’re on’y a casual obsarver.  Ye don’t care annything about me details.  Ye look at me with a gin’ral eye.  Nawthin’ that happens to me really hurts ye.  Ye say, ’I’ll go over to see Dooley,’ sometimes, but more often ye say, ‘I’ll go over to Dooley’s.’  I’m a house to ye, wan iv a thousand that look like a row iv model wurrukin’men’s cottages.  I’m a post to hitch ye’er silences to.  I’m always about th’ same to ye.  But to me I’m a millyon Dooleys an’ all iv thim sthrangers to me.  I niver know which wan iv thim is comin’ in.  I’m like a hotel keeper with on’y wan bed an’ a millyon guests, who come wan at a time an’ tumble each other out.  I set up late at night an’ pass th’ bottle with a gay an’ careless Dooley that hasn’t a sorrow in th’ wurruld, an’ suddenly I look up an’ see settin’ acrost fr’m me a gloomy wretch that fires th’ dhrink out iv th’ window an’ chases me to bed.  I’m just gettin’ used to him whin another Dooley comes in, a cross, cantankerous, crazy fellow that insists on eatin’ breakfast with me.  An’ so it goes.  I know more about mesilf than annybody knows an’ I know nawthin’.  Though I’d make a map fr’m mem’ry an’ gossip iv anny other man, f’r mesilf I’m still uncharted.

“So what’s th’ use iv thryin’ to know annything less important.  Don’t thry.  All ye’ve got to do is to believe what ye hear, an’ if ye do that enough, afther a while ye’ll hear what ye believe.  Ye’ve got to start in believin’ befure ye can find a reason f’r ye’er belief.  Our old frind Christopher Columbus hadn’t anny good reason f’r believin’ that there was anny such a place as America.  But he believed it without a reason an’ thin wint out an’ found it.  Th’ fellows that discovered th’ canals on Mars which other fellows think cud be cured be a good oculist, hadn’t anny right to think there were canals on Mars.  But wan iv thim said:  ’I wondher if there ar-re canals on Mars; I believe there ar-re.  I’ll look an’ see.  Be Hivens, there ar-re.’  If he’d wondhered an’ thin believed about clothes poles he’d’ve found thim too.  Anny kind iv a fact is proof iv a belief.  A firm belief atthracts facts.  They come out iv holes in th’ ground an’ cracks in th’ wall to support belief, but they run away fr’m doubt.

“I’ll niver get anny medal f’r makin’ anny man give up his belief.  If I see a fellow with a chube on his eye and hear him hollerin’, ’Hooray, I’ve discovered a new planet,’ I’ll be th’ last man in th’ wurruld to brush th’ fly off th’ end iv th’ telescope.  I’ve known people that see ghosts.  I didn’t see thim, but they did.  They cud see ghosts an’ I cudden’t.  There wasn’t annything else to it.  I knew a fellow that was a Spiritualist wanst.  He was in th’ chattel morgedge business on week days an’ he was a Spiritulist on Sunday.  He cud understand why th’ spirits wud always pick out a stout lady with false hair or a gintleman that had his thumb mark registhered at Polis Headquarthers to talk through, an’ he knew why spirits liked to play on banjoes an’ mandolins an’ why they convarsed be rappin’ on a table in th’ dark.  An’ there was a man that wud bite a silver dollar in two befure he’d take it f’r good.”