ate-smellin' and houlsome, swaped clane wid a rake,
Wid two or thray pigs jist for company's sake.
Well, phat should she get but the malady vile
Av cholera-phobia-vomitus-bile!
And she sint straight for me: "Dochther Barney, me lad,"
Says she, "I'm in nade av assistance, bedad!
Have yez niver a powdher or bit av a pill?
Me shtomick's a rowlin'; jist make it kape shtill!"
"I'm the boy can do that," says I; "hould on a minit,
Here's me midicine-chist wid me calomel in it,
And I'll make yez a bowle full av rid pipper tay
So shtrong ye'll be thinkin' the divil's to pay,"
Now don't yez be gravin' no more!
Be quit wid yer sighin' forlorn,
Wid shtrychnine and vitriol and opium galore,
Behould me--a gintleman born.
IX.
Wid a gallon av rum thin a flip I created,
Shwate, wid musthard and shpice; and the poker I hated
As rid as a guinea jist out av the mint--
And into her shtomick, begorra, it wint!
Och, niver belave me, but didn't she roar!
I'd have kaped her alive wid a quart or two more;
And the thray little pigs in that house av her own
Wouldn't now be a-shtarvin' and shqualin' alone.
And that gossoon, her boy--the shpalpeen altogither!--
Would niver have shworn that I murdhered his mither.
Troth, for sayin' that same, but I served him a thrick,
Whin I met him by chance wid a bit av a shtick.
Faith, I dochthered him well till the cure I complated,
And, be jabers! there's one man alive that I thrated!
So don't yez be gravin' no more;
To the dogs wid yez sighin' forlorn!
Arrah! knock whin ye're sick at O'Flannigan's door,
And die for a gintleman born!
--_Scribner's Magazine._ 1880.
* * * * *
Or, if one prefers to laugh at the experience of a "culled" brother,
what can be found more irresistible than this?
THE OLD-TIME RELIGION.
BY JULIA PICKERING.
_Brother Simon._ I say, Brover Horace, I hearn you give Meriky de
terriblest beating las' nite. What you and she hab a fallin'-out about?
_Brother Horace._ Well, Brover Simon, you knows yourself I never has no
dejection to splanifying how I rules my folks at home, and 'stablishes
order dar when it's p'intedly needed; and 'fore gracious! I leab you to
say dis time ef 'twant needed, and dat pow'ful bad.
You
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