"Certainly."
"Well," I ansered, "I'm very glad you do, becaus I don't."
This made the Finians larf, and they said, "Walk up onto the speaker's platform sir."
The speeches was red hot agin England, and hir iron heel, and it was resolved to free Ireland at onct. But it was much desirable before freein her that a large quantity of funds should be raised. And, like the gen'rous souls as they was, funs was lib'rally contribooted. Then arose a excitin discussion as to which head center they should send 'em to—O'Mahony or McRoberts. There was grate excitement over this, but it was finally resolved to send half to one and half to 'tother.
Then Mr. Finnigan rose and said, "We have here to-night sum citizens of American birth, whom we should be glad to hear. It would fill our harts with speechless joy to hear from a man whose name towers high in the zoological and wax-figger world—from whose pearly lips—
Says I, "Go slow, Finny, go slow."
"We wish to hear," continued Mr. Finnigan, moderatin his stile summut, "from our townsman, Mr. Ward."
I beg'd to be declined, but it wan't no use. I rose amid a perfeck uproar of applause.
I said we had convened there in a meetin, as I understood it, or rather in a body, as it were, in reference to Ireland. If I knew my own hart, every one of us there, both grate and small had an impulse flowin in his boosum, "and consequentially," I added, we "will stick to it similar and in accordance therewith, as long as a spark of manhood, or the peple at large. That's the kind of man I be!"
Squire Thaxter interrupted me. The Squire feels the wrongs of Ireland deeply, on accounts of havin onct courted the widder of a Irish gentleman who had lingered in a loathsum dunjin in Dublin, placed there by a English tarvern-keeper, who despotically wanted him to pay for a quantity of chops and beer he had consoom'd. Besides, the Squire wants to be re-elected Justice of the Peace. "Mr. Ward," he said, "you've bin drinkin. You're under the infloo'nce of licker, sir!"