FOR AN IRISH TRIP.
(Some Preparatory Memoranda.)
1. To get up the early Celtic history, and establish my undoubted right to call myself an Irishman, by tracing my pedigree directly back to Fergus the First.
2. Lend colourable certainty to this by hiring a low-comedy Donnybrook Fair suit from Nathan's, and wearing it on all public occasions.
3. Make arrangements to take a dozen lessons in jig-dancing and shillelagh-flourishing from some recognised Music-Hall celebrity engaged in this special line of business.
4. Get the words of the We'll have the Tail off the Cow, Pat, and other patriotic songs, by heart, and have an encore verse ready in case of being called upon to give it in any popular emergency.
5. Familiarise myself with the use of such expressions as "Whist! Whist!" "Arrah! are ye shure now," "divil a bit!" and other Irish colloquialisms, and accustom myself to interspersing my orations with shrill whoops to give emphasis to a sentence or point to a period as occasion may require or suggest.
6. Conceive a defence of boycotting and bring it oratorically, in an airy and genial way, within a measurable distance of legality, and back it up if possible with some biblical and Homeric analogies.
7. Study the Plan of Campaign practically, by hurling boiling pitch, meal, lime and brickbats through a besieged cabin-window into the faces of imaginary constabulary without.
8. Habituate myself to mild indulgence in "potheen," occasional drinking of confusion to the "Sassenach," and to taking care not to lose sight of my return ticket.