IRISH VILLAGE
After a while we turned the old patriot’s attention to America, and we found he had a deep interest in the New World. “It’s God’s country over there,” he told us. We found he had friends in America, and he gave us a ludicrous verse in which some Irishman had described the American character.
“He’d kiss a Queen till he’d raise a blister,
With his arms round her neck, and old felt hat on
And address a King by the name of Mister,
And ask him the price of the throne he sat on.”
Mike and I assured him that the Irish poet was too severe on the Yankee.
“Tell us a good Irish story,” I said, before we separated.
“I will that,” he said, and he told us this one.
An excited orator during the American Civil War, exclaimed: