“Patsey’s dead—who’ll pay the rint!”
Death and rent! A most proper combination. Rent is death.
Tibbitts is here, but I am sorry to say that that not altogether exemplary young man is paying a great deal more attention to Irish whisky than he is to Irish troubles.
He came in very much intoxicated last night at twelve o’clock, and I reproved him for the condition he was in.
“It’s my (hic) mother that did it,” he replied. “My mother in Oshkosh.”
“Your mother, you—well, that is too much!”
“True, ’shoor you. She wrote me a long letter, which I got this mornin'. (Hic.) R’ligious letter, and a mighty (hic) good one. (Hic.) Great woman, mother. She said man in state of nature (hic) was wicked as sparks fly upward. Struck me (hic) as true. What was duty? To get out of state of nature. (Hic.) Man full of Irish whisky is not in state (hic) nature—entirely unnatural. Ergo—man drunk not bein’ in state of nature, not sinner. See? Logic. Have too much regard (hic) for mother’s feelings to be in state of nature. Never will be, so long as the old (hic) man comes down.”
I don’t think he ever will be. Clearly, it is my duty to have the young man sent home as soon as possible.
While I am informed that Irish whisky is less destructive of the tissues than English gin or British brandy, or the vile compound they call ale, it will intoxicate, and I do not accept Mr. Tibbitt’s logic. His getting outside of whisky does not enable him to get outside of himself.