The Complete Works of Artemus Ward — Part 7: MiscellaneousWard, Artemus
General
The Complete Works of Artemus Ward — Part 7: Miscellaneous
Ward, Artemus
American wit and humor
Then Mr. Finnigan rose and said, "We have here to-night sum citizens
of American birth, whom we should be glad to hear. It would fill
our harts with speechless joy to hear from a man whose name towers
high in the zoological and wax-figger world--from whose pearly
lips--
Says I, "Go slow, Finny, go slow."
"We wish to hear," continued Mr. Finnigan, moderatin his stile
summut, "from our townsman, Mr. Ward."
I beg'd to be declined, but it wan't no use. I rose amid a perfeck
uproar of applause.
I said we had convened there in a meetin, as I understood it, or
rather in a body, as it were, in reference to Ireland. If I knew my
own hart, every one of us there, both grate and small had an impulse
flowin in his boosum, "and consequentially," I added, we "will stick
to it similar and in accordance therewith, as long as a spark of
manhood, or the peple at large. That's the kind of man I be!"
Squire Thaxter interrupted me. The Squire feels the wrongs of
Ireland deeply, on accounts of havin onct courted the widder of a
Irish gentleman who had lingered in a loathsum dunjin in Dublin,
placed there by a English tarvern-keeper, who despotically wanted
him to pay for a quantity of chops and beer he had consoom'd.
Besides, the Squire wants to be re-elected Justice of the Peace.
"Mr. Ward," he said, "you've bin drinkin. You're under the
infloo'nce of licker, sir!"
Says I, "Squire, not a drop of good licker has passed my lips in
fifteen years.
[Cries of "Oh, here now, that won't do."]
"It is troo," I said. "Not a drop of good licker has passed my lips
in all that time. I don't let it pass 'em. I reach for it while
it's goin by!" says I. "Squire, harness me sum more!"
"I beg pardon," said the Squire, "for the remark; you are sober; but
what on airth are you drivin at?"
"Yes!" I said, "that's just it. That's what I've bin axin myself
during the entire evenin. What is this grate meetin drivin at?
What's all the grate Finian meetins drivin at all over the country?
"My Irish frens, you know me well enuff to know that I didn't come
here to disturb this meetin. Nobody but a loafer will disturb any
kind of a meetin. And if you'll notice it, them as are up to this
sort of thing, allers come to a bad end. There was a young man--I
will not mention his name--who disturb'd my show in a certain town,
two years ago, by makin remarks disrespectful of my animals,
accompanied by a allosan to the front part of my hed, which, as you
see, it is Bald--sayin,-- says this young man, 'You sandpaper it too
much, but you've got a beautiful head of hair in the back of your
neck, old man.' This made a few ignent and low-mindid persons larf;
but what was the fate of that young man? In less than a month his
aunt died and left him a farm in Oxford county, Maine! The human
mind can pictur no grater misfortun than this.
"No, my Irish frens, I am here as your naber and fren. I know YOU
are honest in this Finian matter.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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