So we proceeded to Glasgow, partly by train and partly by steamboat.
Martin talked comfortably agin, on the train, of havin’ seen everything in Ireland, and of havin’ gone to the bottom of the “Irish Question.” “For,” sez he, “the land is governed admirably—splendid standing army, admirable police force, and as for the people,” sez he, “in good seasons, statistics show that there is half a ton of potatoes to each person. More than I consume,” sez he complacently, leanin’ back with his fingers in his vest pockets.
Sez I, “Mebby you’d consume more potatoes if you didn’t consume nothin’ else.” Sez I, “You take out your fowls, and fish, and beef, and lamb, and puddin’s, and pastry, etc., etc., etc., and eat nothin’ but clear potatoes, and how many do you spoze you’d consume, and how much comfort do you spoze you’d take consumin’ ’em?”
He looked lofty, and sez he: “That isn’t a parallel case.”
“And,” sez I, “when the potato crop failed, what then?”
Agin he sez, “That isn’t a parallel case.”
Sez I, “Parallel to what?”
And he said, “Don’t you want the window shut awhile? Let me put your shawl round you; it is a little chilly.”
And then he went on talkin’ to Alice as fast as he could about the seenery, and I wuz too well bread to say anything more.
But I see that Al Faizi had took out his little book with the jewelled cross on it, and he wuz writin’ in it.