r
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.

"But suppose I hadn't resigned fr'm cap'n iv me precinct whin I
was defeated. If annything had happened to me,