"That sounds all right to me. I like to see th' best man or th' best
animile win. An' I want to see him win good. It wudden't help me story
to tell about Tusky goin' home with wan ear gone an' his eye blacked,
an' tellin' his wife that he'd just about managed to put wan over that
stopped another wolf. That's what usually happens up this way, an' it
ain't very good readin'. When I want to tell a story that'll inthrest me
frinds I give it to thim good. Whin I describe me fav'rite hero, Dock
Haggerty, I tell about him throwin' wan man out iv th' window an' usin'
another as a club to bate th' remainin' twelve into submission. But if
I had to swear to it, an' wasn't on good terms with th' Judge, I
wudden't say that I iver see Dock Haggerty lick more than wan man--at a
time. At a time, mind ye. He might take care iv a procession iv
Johnsons. But he'd be in throuble with a couple iv mimbers iv th'
Ethical Culture Society that came to him at th' same moment. 'If iver
more thin wan comes at wanst,' says th' Dock, 'I'm licked,' he says.
"But that ain't what I tell late at night, an' it ain't what I want to
read. Ye bet it ain't. If I wint over to a book store an' blew in me
good thirty-nine cints f'r a dollar-an'-a-half book, I'd want some kind
iv a hero that I never see around these corners. Th' best day I iver
knew Jawn L. Sullivan had a little something on me. I won't say it was
much, but now that we're both retired, I'll say that I'm glad I niver
challenged him. But I wudden't look at a book, an' I wudden't annyway,
but I wudden't let Hogan tell me about a hero that cudden't wear an
overcoat an' rubber boots, have wan arm done up in a sling, an'
something th' matther with th' other, blue spectatacles on his eyes, a
plug hat on his head, th' aujeence throwin' bricks at him, an' th'
referee usin' a cross-cut saw on his neck, an' thin make two hundher an'
fifty Jawn L. Sullivans establish th' new record f'r th' leap through
th' window. Whin I want a hero, I want a good wan. I don't care whether
'tis a wolf, a sojer, or a Prisident. It all comes to th' same
thing--whether 'tis Hogan's frind, th' Wolf that he's been talkin' about
f'r a year, or that other old frind iv his that he used to talk
about--what d'ye call him?--ah, where's me mind goin'?--Ivanhoe.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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