"I haven't picked out the place yet," said Mr. McKenna. "Bill wrote me
the day after election about it. He says: 'John,' he says, 'take
anything you want that's not nailed to the wall,' he says. He heard of
my good work in the Twenty-ninth. We rolled up eight votes in Carey's
precinct, and had five of them counted; and that's more of a miracle
than carrying New York by three hundred thousand."
"It is so," said Mr. Dooley. "It is f'r a fact. Ye must 've give the
clerks an' judges morphine, an' ye desarve great credit. Ye ought to
have a place; an' I think ye'll get wan, if there's enough to go round
among th' Irish Raypublicans. 'Tis curious what an effect an iliction
has on th' Irish Raypublican vote. In October an Irish Raypublican's
so rare people point him out on th' sthreet, an' women carry their
babies to see him. But th' day afther iliction, glory be, ye run into
thim ivrywhere,--on th' sthreet-car, in the sthreet, in saloons
principally, an' at th' meetin's iv th' Raypublican Comity. I've seen
as manny iv them as twinty in here to-day, an' ivry wan iv thim fit to
run anny job in th' governmint, fr'm directin' th' Departmint iv State
to carryin' ashes out an' dumpin thim in th' white lot.
"They can't all have jobs, but they've got to be attinded to first;
an', whin Mack's got through with thim, he can turn in an' make up
that cabinet iv his. Thin he'll have throuble iv his own, th' poor
man, on'y comin' into fifty thousand a year and rint free. If 'twas
wan iv th' customs iv th' great raypublic iv ours, Jawn, f'r to
appoint th' most competent men f'r th' places, he'd have a mighty
small lot f'r to pick fr'm. But, seein' that on'y thim is iligible
that are unfit, he has th' divvle's own time selectin'. F'r Sicrety iv
State, if he follows all iv what Casey calls recent precidints, he's
limited to ayether a jack-leg counthry lawyer, that has set around
Washington f'r twinty years, pickin' up a dollar or two be runnin'
errands f'r a foreign imbassy, or a judge that doesn't know whether
th' city of Booloogne-sure-Mere, where Tynan was pinched, is in
Boolgahria or th' County Cavan. F'r Sicrety iv th' Threasury he has a
choice iv three kinds iv proud and incompetent fi-nanceers. He can
ayether take a bank prisident, that 'll see that his little bank an'
its frinds doesn't get th' worst iv it, or a man that cudden't
maintain th' par'ty iv a counthry dhry-good store long enough to stand
off th' sheriff, or a broken-down Congressman, that is full iv red
liquor half the year, an' has remorse settin' on his chest th' other
half.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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