“Boss,” said the old man, sinking his voice to a confidential undertone, “I’m gwine tell you a secret. Dat mare ain’t sick, but yere lately, as you mout say, she’s been kind of out o’ luck.”
“What do you mean—out of luck?” asked the passenger.
“Well, suh, ever’ mawnin’ I shakes the dice to see whether dat mare has a bait of oats or I has me a slug of gin. An’ she ain’t won fur goin’ on mouty nigh a week.”
§ 118 The Call of the Far East
Walter Kelly, famous in vaudeville, has an old friend at Buffalo who formerly was a Feinian and now is the most confirmed of Sinn Feiners. If there is anything on earth Kelly’s friend doesn’t like it’s something English. His version of the British national anthem probably would run: “God Save the King Till We Can Get At Um!”
In 1921 Kelly was playing in vaudeville at Buffalo. As he sat in his dressing-room, awaiting his turn, his ancient acquaintance came to see him. When greetings had been exchanged Kelly said:
“Well, Dennis, it’s a great day for all of us who are of Irish blood. Now that England has granted Ireland self-government, there’s no reason, as I see it, why the Irish and the English should not try to forget their old feud and live hereafter at peace. The Irish have no further cause for a quarrel with the British!”
“Well, I don’t know about that, Walter,” said the unreconciled Dennis. “Don’t ye think now we ought to be doin’ somethin’ fur thim poor Hindus?”
§ 119 He Wouldn’t Commit Himself Yet
The conservation of the Down-East farmer is proverbial. Possibly this trait is a heritage of his Puritan ancestry.