There was once an Irishman, who sought employment as a diver, bringing with him his native enthusiasm and a certain amount of experience. Although he had never been beneath the water, he had crossed an ocean of one variety and swallowed nearly an ocean of another. But he had the Hibernian smile, which is convincing, and the firm chanced to need a new man. And so on the following Monday morning Pat hid his smile for the first time in a diving helmet.
Now, the job upon which the crew to which Pat had attached himself was working in comparatively shallow water, and Pat was provided with a pick and told to use it on a ledge below in a manner with which he was already familiar.
Down he went with his pick, and for about fifteen minutes nothing was heard from him. Then came a strong, determined, deliberate pull on the signal rope, indicating that Pat had a very decided wish to come to the top. The assistants pulled him hastily to the raft and removed his helmet.
“Take off the rest of it,” said Pat.
“Take off the rest of it?”
“Yis,” said Pat, “Oi’ll worruk no longer in a dark place where Oi can’t spit on me hands.”
On the first day that a young man began his duties as reporter on a popular paper a report came from a near-by town that there was a terrible fire raging. The editor of the paper immediately sent the new reporter to the place, and, upon arriving there, he found that the firemen were unable to get control of the fire, so he sent this telegram to the editor: “Fire still raging. What shall I do?” The editor was so mad that he wired back at once: “Find out where the fire is the hottest and jump in.”
“One day,” related Denny to his friend Jerry, “when Oi had wandered too far inland on me shore leave Oi suddenly found thot there was a great big haythen, tin feet tall, chasin’ me wid a knife as long as yer ar-rm. Oi took to me heels an’ for fifty miles along the road we had it nip an’ tuck. Thin Oi turned into the woods an’ we run for one hundhred an’ twinty miles more, wid him gainin’ on me steadily, owin’ to his knowledge of the counthry. Finally, just as Oi could feel his hot breath burnin’ on the back of me neck, we came to a big lake. Wid one great leap Oi landed safe on the opposite shore, leavin’ me pursuer confounded and impotent wid rage.”