"Well, ye see," said Mr. Dooley, "suppose annything happens to ye now; a fellow counthryman dhrops a hammer on ye th' day afther th' picnic or ye'er di-gestion listens to a walkin' dillygate fr'm th' Union iv Microbes an' goes out on sthrike. Th' polisman on th' corner has th' usual suspicions among gintlemen an' hits ye over th' head an' calls th' wagon an' sinds ye home. Th' good woman wrings her hands an' calls Hiven to witness that if ye have a toothache ye wake th' neighborhood, an' slaps a mustard plasther on ye. If she comes back later an' finds ye haven't put th' sheet between ye an' th' plasther an' gone to sleep, she knows 'tis seeryous an' sinds f'r th' doctor. We continyoo to have doctors in what th' pa-apers calls th' outlyin' wards. They live above th' dhrug-store an' practice midicine on us. Th' physicians an' surgeons are all down town editin' th' pa-apers. Well, dock comes to ye afther awhile in a buggy. On th' way up he sets a broken leg, removes an arm, does a little something f'r th' city directhry, takes a dhrink, talks pollyticks with th' unhappy parent an' fin'lly lands at ye'er dure with th' burglar's tools. Afther he's closed that dure th' secrets iv th' inner man is known on'y to him. No wan hears or wants to hear annything about it. Th' nex' time we see ye, ye come out lookin' pale an' emacyated an' much younger an' betther lookin' thin annywan iver raymimbers seein' ye, an' afther awhile ye obsarve that whin ye start to tell how manny stitches it took an' what ye see whin ye smelled th' dizzy sponge, ye'er frinds begin to sprint away. An' ye go back reluctantly to wurruk. Ye niver hear annywan say: 'Hinnissy is great comp'ny whin he begins to talk about his sickness.' I've seen men turn fr'm a poor, helpless, enthusyastic invalid to listen to a man talkin' about th' Nicaragoon canal. "But with th' great 'tis far diff'rent. I've often thanked th' Lord that I didn't continyoo in pollytics whin I was cap'n iv me precinct, f'r with th' eyes iv all th' wurruld focussed, as Hogan says, on me, I cud niver injye th' pleasure iv a moment's sickness without people in far-off Boolgahrya knowin' whether me liver was on sthraight. Sickness is wan iv th' privileges iv th' poor man that he shares with no wan. Whin it comes kindly to him, th' four walls iv his room closes in on him like a tent, folks goes by on th' other side iv th' sthreet, th' rollin' mill disappears, an' with th' mornin' comes no honest day's tile. He lies there in blessid idleness an' no matther what's th' matther with him, he don't suffer half as much pain as he would in pursoot iv two dollars a day. I knowed a man wanst who used to take his vacations that way. Whin others wint off f'r to hunt what Hogan calls th' finny monsthers iv th' deep, he become seeryously ill an' took to bed. It made him very sthrong.