“There will be no change in the world while men suffering from indigestion will marry cooks.”
“That’s a wise thing for a sensible man to do. A cranky and delicate man should marry a nurse, a man always out of employment should marry a dressmaker, and a man fond of quietness and reading should live with a married sister, if she has no children.”
“Wisha, after all’s said and done, there’s nothing worse nor better than being a bachelor, as the case may be. ’Tis better to be a bachelor, I’m thinking, for you may go to your grave without being disillusioned. But when a man’s dead, it doesn’t matter whether he was married or not, or shot by an ivory-handled revolver or died from rheumatics.”
“A man suffering from rheumatics should be mindful of the westerly gales, and the frosts of winter, and keep from eating salty beef and tomatoes. I think a rheumaticky man should get married, but should not marry a woman with a tendency to gout. And ’tis always well to marry an orphan because there’s nothing worse than mothers-in-law, except sisters-in-law, and they’re the devil entirely.”
“To change the subject,” said Micus, “I don’t think it is fair to catch lobsters at night. No one wants to be disturbed in their sleep.”
“If you look at things like that,” said Padna, “you’ll never be happy, and though it isn’t easy to please myself, I think ’tis a grand thing entirely that all caterpillars are vegetarians.”
“I don’t think we should waste time talking about caterpillars. They never do anything but eat cabbage and cause gardeners to use bad language. Of course, the history of a buffalo or a butterfly is a wonderful thing, but if elephants were to grow wings we wouldn’t take any notice of canaries, bees, or water hens,” said Micus.
“I’d give a lot of money to see a flock of elephants flying over the Rock of Cashel,” said Padna.
“That would be a great thing for the newspapers and the moving pictures, though perhaps a dangerous thing for people of a nervous disposition,” said Micus.
“And ‘twould be the devil of a thing entirely if they forgot to fly.”