"'No,' I sez, 'this is good enough for a poor man,' an' we sat down at the next table to th' gurrls. Well, sir, from that time my mind's a blank. I was like the feller in the story-books. I knew no more. I dunno what happened at all, at all, with dancin' gurrls an' snake cha-armers an' Boolgarian club swingers an' foreign men goin' around with their legs in mattesses. All I know is this, that I was carried to a ca-ar in a seedin' chair by two men with room enough in the seat of their pants to dhrive a street sweeper. Did y'r never ride in a seedin' chair, George? Then, faith, ye're not in my class. Fol-der-rol, de-rol de raddle, fol——"
"An' what did ye do with O'Connor?"
"How do I know? The last time I remimber him he was askin' a girl in the Turkish theayter whether she liked vanilla or rawsburry in her soda wather, the droolin jackanapes. Ah, na-ha, the girls of Limerick city——." The colonel resumed his thrumming.
"And is that all you see of the fair."
"Yis," said the colonel, "an" faith! if you had me hed you'd think it was enough. An', George, to be in earnest wid ye, that I've known since you was a little dirty boy, go to the fair, ride around in the boats, luk at the canned tomatties an' the table-clothes, ride in the electric cars, but beware of that Midway. It'll no do for young men at all, at all. You'd lose your head. You would, you would. Oh, fol-de-rol, de raddle rol."
After this amusing experience just related before them, Uncle thought it very advisable to give Johnny "a good talkin' to about doin' nothin' wrong in that heathen exhibition of furriners."
But Johnny could afford to finish that Saturday walking demurely around with the rest, for the next Monday morning Louis, the train-boy, was to be guard and guide through the mysteries of Midway Plaisance.