Mr. Dooley Says, Finley Peter Dunne [good books to read for teens TXT] 📗

long enough to hurt. I have been through manny a panic. I cud handle wan as well as Morgan. Panics cause thimsilves an' take care iv thimsilves. Who do I blame for this wan? Grogan blamed Rosenfelt yesterday; to-day he blames Mulligan; to-morrah he won't blame anny wan an' thin th' panic will be over. I blame no wan, an' I blame ivry wan. All I say to ye is, be brave, be ca'm an' go on shovellin'. So long as there's a Hinnissy in th' wurruld, an' he has a shovel, an' there's something f'r him to shovel, we'll be all right, or pretty near all right.

"Don't ye think Rosenfelt has shaken public confidence?" asked Mr. Hennessy.

"Shaken it," said Mr. Dooley; "I think he give it a good kick just as it jumped off th' roof."


OCEAN TRAVEL

"I see this here new steamboat has broke all records. It come acrost th' Atlantic Ocean in four days. Passengers that got aboord at Liverpool on Saturday were in New York Friday afthernoon."

"But that's more thin four days."

"Not be nautical time, said Mr. Dooley. Ye mustn't figure it out th' way ye do on land. On land ye niver read that 'Th' Thunderbolt limited has broken all records be thravellin' fr'm New York (Harrisburg) to Chicago (Fort Wayne) in eight hours.' But with a steamboat 'tis different. Ye saw a lot iv time off ayether end an' what's left is th' v'yage. 'Th' Conyard line's gr-reat ocean greyhound or levithin iv th' seas has broken all records iv transatlantic passages except thim made be th' Germans. She has thravelled fr'm Liverpool (a rock so far off th' coast iv Ireland that I niver see it) to New York (Sandy Hook lightship) in four or five days. Brittanya again rules th' waves.' So if ye've anny frinds inclined to boast about makin' a record ask thim did they swim aboord at Daunt's Rock an' swim off at th' lightship. If they didn't, refuse to take off ye'er hat to thim. To tell how long it takes to cross th' Atlantic compute th' elapsed time fr'm boordin' house to boordin' house. It's fr'm a week to ten days depindin on th' time ye go to bed whin ye come home. Manny a man that come over on a five-day boat has had th' divvle iv a time explainin' to his wife what he did with th' other two days. No record iv thransatlantic thravel takes into account th' longest, roughest an' most dangerous part iv th' passage, which is through th' New York custom house.

"But 'tis wondherful annyhow. 'Tis wondherful that a man shud cross th' Atlantic ocean annyhow an' 'tis enough to make ye dizzy to think iv him crossin' it in an iron boat that looks like a row iv office buildings. Th' grand times they must've had. Time was whin a man got on a boat an' was lost f'r a week or ten days. Now, be hivens, through th' wondhers iv modhern science he's hardly settled down to a cigar an' a game iv pinochle with another fugitive that he's just met, whin a messenger boy comes down th' deck on his bicycle an' hands him a tillygram with glad tidings fr'm home. Th' house is burned, th' sheriff has levied on his furniture or th' fam'ly are down with th' whoopin' cough. On th' other hand we know all about what they are doin' on boord th' levithin. Just as ye'er wife is thinkin' iv ye bein' wrecked on a desert island or floatin' on a raft an' signallin' with an undershirt she picks up th' pa-aper an' reads: 'Th' life iv th' ship is Malachi Hinnissy, a wealthy bachelor fr'm Pittsburg. His attintions to a widow from Omaha are most marked. They make a handsome couple.'

"Well, sir, they must 've had th' gloryus time on boord this new boat. In th' old days all ye knew about a ship was that she left Liverpool and landed in New York afther a most disthressin' v'yage. Now ye r-read iv th' gay life aboord her fr'm day to day: 'Th' tie in th' billyard tournymint was played off last night. Th' resthrants are crowded nightly an' great throngs are seen in Main Sthreet undher th' brilliant illuminations. Th' public gardens are in full bloom an' are much frequented be childher rollin' hoops and sailin' boats in th' artificial lake. Th' autymobill speedway gives gr-reat satisfaction. Th' opening day iv th' steeplechase races was a success. Th' ilivator in th' left annex fell thirteen stories Thursday, but no wan was injured. Th' brokerage house iv Conem an' Comp'ny wint into th' hands iv a receiver to-day. Th' failure was due to th' refusal iv th' banks to lend anny more money on hat pools. Th' steeple iv th' Swedenborjan Church is undher repair. Th' _Daily Fog Horn_ has put in three new color presses an' will begin printin' a colored supplement Sunday next.' An' so it goes. It ain't a boat at all. It's a city.

"At laste I thought it was but Hannigan that come over in it says it's a boat. 'Ye must've had a grand time,' says I, 'in this floatin' palace, atin' ye'er fill iv sumchuse food an' gazin' at th' beautifully jooled ladies,' says I. 'Ah,' says I, 'th' wondhers iv science that cud put together a conthrivance th' like iv that,' says I. 'It's a boat,' says he. 'That's th' best I can say about it,' says he. 'Did ye not glide noiselessly through th' wather?' says I? 'I did not,' says he. 'Divvle th' glide. We bumped along pretty fast an' th' injines made noises like injines an' th' ship creaked like anny ship.' 'An' wasn't th' food fine?' 'It depinded on th' weather. There was plenty iv it on good days, an' too much iv it on other days.' 'An' th' beautifully jooled ladies?' 'No wan knew whether th' ladies were beautifully jooled except th' lady that searched thim at th' custom house.

"'Don't ye make a mistake, Dooley,' says he. 'A boat's a boat. That's all it is. Annything ye can get at sea ye can get betther on land. A millyonaire is made as comfortable on an ocean liner as a longshoreman on earth an' ye can play that comparison all th' way down to th' steerage. Whin I read about this here floatin' palace I says to mesilf: I'll add a little money and go acrost in oryental luxury. Whin I got aboord th' decks were crowded with happy people worryin' about their baggage an' wondherin' already whether th' inspector in New York wud get onto th' false bottom iv th' thrunks. I give th' old an' enfeebled English gintleman that carried me satchel a piece iv silver. He touched his cap to me an' says Cue. Cue is th' English f'r I thank ye kindly in Irish. He carrid me bag downstairs in th' ship. We kept goin' down an' down till we touched bottom, thin we rambled through long lanes neatly decorated with steel girders till we come to a dent in th' keel. That was me boodoor. At laste part iv it was. There were two handsome berths in it an' I had th' top wan. Th' lower wan was already occypied be a gintleman that had started to feel onaisy on th' way down f'm London an' was now prepared f'r th' worst. I left him to his grief an' wint up on th' roof iv th' ship.

"'It was a gay scene f'r th' boat had started. Long rows iv ladies were stretched on invalid chairs with shawls over thim, pretindin' to read an' takin' deep smells at little green bottles. Three or four hundherd men had begun to walk around th' ship with their hands folded behind thim. A poker game between four rale poker players an' a man that didn't know th' game but had sharp finger-nails was already started in th' smokin'-room. About that time I begun to have a quare sinsation. I haven't been able to find out yet what it was. I must ask Dock O'Leary. I wasn't sea-sick, mind ye. I'm a good sailor. But I had a funny feelin' in me forehead between me eyes. It wasn't a headache exactly but a kind iv a sthrange sinsation like I used to have whin I was a boy an' thried to look cross-eyed. I suppose it was th' strong light. I didn't have anny aversion to food. Not at all. But somehow I didn't like th' smell iv food. It was disagreeable to me an' it seemed to make th' place in me head worse. Sivral times I wint to th' dinin'-room intindin' to jine th' jovyal comp'ny there but quit at th' dure. It was very sthrange. I don't know how to account f'r it. Very few people were sea-sick on th' v'yage, but sivral hundherd who were injyin' paddlin' a spoon in a cup iv beef tea on deck spoke iv havin' th' same sinsation. I didn't speak iv it to th' ship's doctor. I'd as lave carry me ailments to a harness maker as to a ship's doctor. But there it was, an' fr'm me pint iv view it was th' most important ivint iv th' passage.

"Next to that th' most excitin' thing was thryin' to find annybody that wud take money fr'm me. It's a tur-rble awkward thing to have to force money on an Englishman in a uniform like an admiral's an' talkin' with an accent that manny iv th' finest people on th' deck were thryin' to imitate, but I schooled mesilf to it. An' sthrange to say they niver refused. They were even betther thin that. I was lavin' th' ship whin th' fellow that pulled th' plug out iv th' other man's bath f'r me touched me on th' shoulder. I turned an' see a frindly gleam in his eye that made me wondher if he had a knife. I give him what they call five bobs over there, which is wan dollar an' twinty cints iv our money. He touched his cap an' says Cue. I was greatly moved. But it's done wan thing f'r me. It's made me competint f'r anny office connected with th' legal departmint iv a sthreet railway. Be hivens, I cud hand a piece iv change to a judge iv th' supreem coort. I hear th' Conyard line has passed a dividend. They ought to make a merger with th' head stoort,' says he.

"An' there ye ar-re. A boat's a boat aven whin it looks like a hotel. But it's wondherful annyhow. Whin ye come to think iv it 'tis wondherful that anny man cud cross th' Atlantic in annything. Th' Atlantic Ocean is a fine body iv wather, but it's a body iv wather just th' same. It wasn't intinded to be thravelled on. Ye cud put ye'er foot through it annywhere. It's sloppy goin' at best. Th' on'y time a human being can float in it is afther he's dead. A man throws a horseshoe into it an' th' horseshoe sinks. This makes him cross an' he builds a boat iv th' same mateeryal as a millyon horseshoes, loads it up with machinery, pushes it out on th' billows an' goes larkin' acrost thim as aisy as ye plaze. If he didn't go over on a large steel skyscraper he'd take a dure off its hinges an' go on that.

"All ye have to do is to tell him there's land on th' other side iv th' ragin' flood an' he'll say: 'All right, I'll take a look at it.' Ye talk about th' majesty iv th' ocean but what about th' majesty iv this here little sixty-eight be