Mr. Dooley Says by Finley Peter Dunne (best contemporary novels .txt) 📗

"Yes, sir, if I was a doctor I'd be ayether laughin' or cryin' all th' time. I'd be laughin' over th' cases that I was called into whin I wasn't needed an' cryin' over th' cases where I cud do no good. An' that wud be most iv me cases.

"Dock O'Leary comes in here often an' talks medicine to me. 'Ye'ers is a very thrying pro-fissyon,' says I. 'It is,' says he. 'I'm tired out,' says he. 'Have ye had a good manny desprit cases to-day?' says I. 'It isn't that,' says he, 'but I'm not a very muscular man,' he says, 'an' some iv th' windows in these old frame houses are hard to open,' he says. Th' Dock don't believe much in dhrugs. He says that if he wasn't afraid iv losin' his practice he wudn't give annybody annything but quinine an' he isn't sure about that. He says th' more he practises medicine th' more he becomes a janitor with a knowledge iv cookin'. He says if people wud on'y call him in befure they got sick, he'd abolish ivry disease in th' ward except old age an' pollyticks. He says he's lookin' forward to th' day whin th' tillyphone will ring an' he'll hear a voice sayin': 'Hurry up over to Hinnissy's. He niver felt so well in his life.' 'All right, I'll be over as soon as I can hitch up th' horse. Take him away fr'm th' supper table at wanst, give him a pipeful iv tobacco an' walk him three times around th' block.'

"But whin a man's sick, he's sick an' nawthin' will cure him or annything will. In th' old days befure ye an' I were born, th' doctor was th' barber too. He'd shave ye, cut ye'er hair, dye ye'er mustache, give ye a dhry shampoo an' cure ye iv appindicitis while ye were havin' ye'er shoes shined be th' naygur. Ivry gineration iv doctors has had their favrite remedies. Wanst people were cured iv fatal maladies be applications iv blind puppies, hair fr'm the skulls iv dead men an' solutions iv bat's wings, just as now they're cured be dhrinkin' a tayspoonful iv a very ordhinary article iv booze that's had some kind iv a pizenous weed dissolved in it.

"Dhrugs, says Dock O'Leary, are a little iv a pizen that a little more iv wud kill ye. He says that if ye look up anny poplar dhrug in th' ditchnry ye'll see that it is 'A very powerful pizen of great use in medicine.' I took calomel at his hands f'r manny years till he told me that it was about the same thing they put into Rough on Rats. Thin I stopped. If I've got to die, I want to die on th' premises.

"But, as he tells me, ye can't stop people from takin' dhrugs an' ye might as well give thim something that will look important enough to be inthrojuced to their important an' fatal cold in th' head. If ye don't, they'll leap f'r the patent medicines. Mind ye, I haven't got annything to say again patent medicines. If a man wud rather take thim thin dhrink at a bar or go down to Hop Lung's f'r a long dhraw, he's within his rights. Manny a man have I known who was a victim iv th' tortures iv a cigareet cough who is now livin' comfortable an' happy as an opeem fiend be takin' Doctor Wheezo's Consumption Cure. I knew a fellow wanst who suffered fr'm spring fever to that extent that he niver did a day's wurruk. To-day, afther dhrinkin' a bottle of Gazooma, he will go home not on'y with th' strenth but th' desire to beat his wife. There is a dhrug store on ivry corner an' they're goin' to dhrive out th' saloons onless th' govermint will let us honest merchants put a little cocaine or chloral in our cough-drops an' advertise that it will cure spinal minigitis. An' it will, too, f'r awhile."

"Don't ye iver take dhrugs?" asked Mr. Hennessy.

"Niver whin I'm well," said Mr. Dooley. "Whin I'm sick, I'm so sick I'd take annything."

"Hogan was in here just now," said Mr. Dooley, "an' he tells me he was talkin' with th' Alderman an' they both agreed we're sure to have war with th' Japs inside iv two years. They can see it comin'. Befure very long thim little brown hands acrost th' sea will hand us a crack in th' eye an' thin ye'll see throuble."

"What's it all about?" asked Mr. Hennessy.

"Divvle a thing can I make out iv it," said Mr. Dooley. "Hogan says we've got to fight f'r th' supreemacy iv th' Passyfic. Much fightin' I'd do f'r an ocean, but havin' taken th' Philippeens, which ar-re a blamed nuisance, an th' Sandwich Islands, that're about as vallyable as a toy balloon to a horse-shoer, we've got to grab a lot iv th' surroundin' dampness to protect thim. That's wan reason why we're sure to have war. Another reason is that th' Japs want to sind their little forty-five-year-old childher to be iddycated in th' San Francisco public schools. A third reason why it looks like war to Hogan an' th' Alderman is that they'd been dhrinkin' together.

"Wud ye iver have thought 'twas possible that anny wan in this counthry cud even talk iv war with thim delightful, cunning little Oryentals? Why, 'tis less thin two years since Hogan was comin' home fr'm th' bankit iv th' Union iv Usurers with his arms around th' top iv a Jap's head while th' Jap clutched Hogan affectionately about th' waist an' they sung 'Gawd Save th' Mickydoo.' D'ye raymimber how we hollered with joy whin a Rooshyan Admiral put his foot through th' bottom iv a man-iv-war an' sunk it. An' how we cheered in th' theaytre to see th' cute little sojers iv th' Mickydoo mowin' down th' brutal Rooshyan moojiks with masheen guns. An' fin'lly, whin th' Japs had gone a thousand miles into Rooshyan territory an' were about busted an' ayether had to stop fightin' or not have car fare home, our worthy Prisident, ye know who I mean, jumped to th' front an' cried: 'Boys, stop it. It's gone far enough to satisfy th' both iv ye.' An th' angel iv peace brooded over th' earth an' crowed lustily.

"Day after day th' pa-apers come out an' declared, in th' column next to th' half-page ad iv th' Koppenheimer bargain sale, that th' defeat iv Rooshya was a judgment iv th' Lord on th' Czar. If ye saw a Jap annywhere, ye asked him to take a dhrink.

"Hogan talked about nawthin' else. They were a wondherful little people. How they had diviloped! Nawthin' in th' histhry iv th' wurruld was akel to th' way they'd come up. They cud shoot straighter an' oftener thin anny other nation. A Jap cud march three hundred miles a day f'r eight days with nawthin' to eat. They were highly civvylized. It was an old civvylization but not tainted be age. Millyons iv years befure th' first white man set fut in Milwaukee th' Japs undhershtud th' mannyfacther iv patent wringers, sewin'-masheens, reapers, tillyphones, autymobills, ice-cream freezers, an' all th' other wondhers iv our boasted Westhren divilopement.

"Their customs showed how highly they'd been civvylized. Whin a Jap soldier was defeated, rather thin surrendher an' be sint home to have his head cut off, he wud stab himself in th' stummick. Their treatment iv women put thim on a higher plane thin ours. Cinchries ago befure th' higher iddycation iv women was dhreamed iv in this counthry, th' poorest man in Japan cud sind his daughter to a tea-house, which is th' same as our female siminaries, where she remained till she gradyated as th' wife iv some proud noble iv th' old Samuri push.

"Their art had ours thrimmed to a frazzle. Th' Jap artist O'Casey's pitcher iv a lady leanin' on a river while a cow walked up her back, was th' loveliest thing in th' wurruld. They were th' gr-reatest athletes iver known. A Japanese child with rickets cud throw Johnson over a church. They had a secret iv rasslin' be which a Jap rassler cud blow on his opponent's eyeball an' break his ankle. They were th' finest soordsmen that iver'd been seen. Whin a Japanese soordsman wint into a combat he made such faces that his opponent dhropped his soord an' thin he uttered a bloodcurdlin' cry, waved his soord four hundhred an' fifty times over th' head iv th' victim or in th' case iv a Samuri eight hundred an' ninety-six, give a whoop resimblin' our English wurrud 'tag,' an' clove him to th' feet. As with us, on'y th' lower classes engaged in business. Th' old arrystocracy distained to thrade but started banks an' got all th' money. Th' poor man had a splendid chance. He cud devote his life to paintin' wan rib iv a fan, f'r which he got two dollars, or he cud become a cab horse. An' even in th' wan branch iv art that Westhren civvylization is supposed to excel in, they had us beat miles. They were th' gr-reatest liars in th' wurruld an' formerly friends iv th' Prisidint.

"All these here things I heerd fr'm Hogan an' see in th' pa-apers. I invied this wondherful nation. I wisht, sometimes, th' Lord hadn't given me two blue an' sometimes red eyes an' this alkiline nose, but a nose like an ear an' a couple iv shoe-buttons f'r eyes. I wanted to be a Jap an' belong to th' higher civvylization. Hogan had a Jap frind that used to come in here with him. Hogan thought he was a Prince, but he was a cook an' a student in a theelogical siminry. They'd talk be th' hour about th' beauties iv what Hogan called th' Flowery Kingdom. 'Oh, wondherful land,' says Hogan. 'Land iv chrysanthymums an' cherry blossoms a' gasyhee girls,' says he. 'Japan is a beautiful land,' says Prince Okoko. 'Nippon, (that's th' name it goes by at home,) Nippon, I salute ye,' says Hogan. 'May victhry perch upon ye'er banners, an' may ye hammer our old frinds an' allies fr'm Mookden to Moscow. Banzai,' says he. An' they embraced. That night, in ordher to help on th' cause, Hogan bought a blue flower-pot fr'm th' Prince's collection f'r eighteen dollars. He took it home undher his ar-rm in th' rain an' th' next mornin' most iv th' flower-pot was on his new overcoat an' th' rest was meltin' all over th' flure.

"That was the beginnin' iv th' end iv th' frindship between th' two gr-reat nations that owe thimselves so much. About th' time Hogan got th' flower-pot, th' fire-sale ads an' th' Rooshyan outrage news both stopped in th' newspa-apers. A well-known fi-nanceer who thravelled to Tokeeo with a letter iv inthraduction to th' Mickydoo fr'm th' Prisidint beginnin' 'Dear mick,' got a brick put through his hat as he wint to visit th' foorth assistant to th' manicure iv th' eighth assistant to th' plumber iv th' bricklayer iv th' Mickydoo, which is th' nearest to his Majesty that foreign eyes ar-re permitted to look upon. A little later a number iv Americans in private life who wint over to rayceive in person th' thanks iv th' Impror f'r what they'd done f'r him talkin' ar-round th' bar at th' Union League Club, were foorced be th' warmth iv their rayciption to take refuge in th' house iv th' Rooshyan counsel. Th' next month some iv th' subjects iv our life-long frind an' ally were shot while hookin' seals fr'm our side iv th' Passyfic. Next week a prom'nent Jap'nese statesman was discovered payin' a socyal visit to th' Ph'lippeens. He had with him at th' time two cameras, a couple iv line men, surveyin' tools, a thousand feet iv tape line, an' a bag iv dinnymite bombs. Last month th' Jap'nese Governmint wrote to th' Prisidint: 'Most gracious an' bewilderin' Majesty, Impror iv th' Sun, austere an' patient Father iv th' Stars, it has come to our benign attintion that in wan iv ye'er populous domains our little prattlin' childher who ar-re over forty years iv age ar-re not admitted to th' first reader classes in th' public schools. Oh, brother beloved, we adore ye. Had ye not butted in with ye'er hivenly binivolence we wud've shook Rooshya down f'r much iv her hateful money. Now we must prove our affection with acts. It is our intintion to sind a fleet to visit ye'er shores, partickly San Francisco, where we undherstand th' school system is well worth studyin'.'

"An' there ye ar-re, Hinnissy. Th' frindship ceminted two years ago with blood an' beers is busted. I don't know whether annything will happen. Hogan thinks so, but I ain't sure. Th' Prisidint has announced that rather thin see wan octoginaryan Jap