Stories of Comedy | Page 2

road jobs, etc., became topics, and various strictures as to the utility of the latter were indulged in, while the merits of the neighboring farmers were canvassed.
"Why thin," said one, "that field o' whate o' Michael Coghlan is the finest field o' whate mortial eyes was ever set upon,--divil the likes iv it myself ever seen far or near."
"Throth thin sure enough," said another, "it promises to be a fine crap anyhow, and myself can't help thinkin' it quare that Mikee Coghlan, that's a plain-spoken, quite (quiet) man, and simple like, should have finer craps than Pether Kelly o' the big farm beyant, that knows all about the great saycrets o' the airth, and is knowledgeable to a degree, and has all the hard words that iver was coined at his fingers' ends."
"Faith, he has a power o' blasthogue about him sure enough," said the former speaker, "if that could do him any good, but he isn't fit to hould a candle to Michael Coghlan in the regard o' farmin'."
"Why blur and agers," rejoined the upholder of science, "sure he met the Scotch steward that the lord beyant has, one day, that I hear is a wondherful edicated man, and was brought over here to show us all a patthern,--well, Pether Kelly met him one day, and, by gor, he discoorsed him to a degree that the Scotch chap hadn't a word left in his jaw."
"Well, and what was he the betther o' having more prate than a Scotchman?" asked the other.
"Why," answered Kelly's friend, "I think it stands to rayson that the man that done out the Scotch steward ought to know somethin' more about farmin' than Mikee Coghlan."
"Augh! don't talk to me about knowing," said the other, rather contemptuously. "Sure I gev in to you that he has a power o' prate, and the gift o' the gab, and all to that. I own to you that he has the-o-ry, and che-mis-thery, but he hasn't the craps. Now, the man that has the craps is the man for my money."
"You're right, my boy," said O'Reirdon, with an approving thump of his brawny fist upon the table, "it's a little talk goes far,--doin' is the thing."
"Ah, yiz may run down larnin' if yiz like," said the undismayed stickler for theory versus practice, "but larnin' is a fine thing, and sure where would the world be at all only for it, sure where would the staymers (steamboats) be, only for larnin'?"
"Well," said O'Reirdon, "and the divil may care if we never seen them; I'd rather depind an wind and canvas any day than the likes o' them! What are they good for, but to turn good sailors into kitchen-maids, bilin' a big pot o' wather and oilin' their fire-irons, and throwin' coals an the fire? Augh? thim staymers is a disgrace to the say; they're for all the world like old fogies, smokin' from mornin' till night and doin' no good."
"Do you call it doin' no good to go fasther nor ships iver wint before?"
"Pooh; sure Solomon, queen o' Sheba, said there was time enough for all things."
"Thrue for you," said O'Sullivan, "fair and aisy goes far in a day, is a good ould sayin'."
"Well, maybe you'll own to the improvement they're makin' in the harbor o' Howth, beyant, in Dublin, is some good."
"We'll see whether it'll be an improvement first," said the obdurate O'Reirdon.
"Why, man alive, sure you'll own it's the greatest o' good it is, takin' up the big rocks out o' the bottom o' the harbor."
"Well, an' where's the wondher o' that? sure we done the same here."
"O yis, but it was whin the tide was out and the rocks was bare; but up at Howth, they cut away the big rocks from undher the say intirely."
"O, be aisy; why how could they do that?"
"Aye, there's the matther, that's what larnin' can do; and wondherful it is intirely! and the way it is, is this, as I hear it, for I never seen it, but heerd it described by the lord to some gintlemin and ladies one day in his garden where I was helpin' the gardener to land some salary (celery). You see the ingineer goes down undher the wather intirely, and can stay there as long as he plazes."
"Whoo! and what o' that? Sure I heered the long sailor say, that come from the Aystern Injees, that the ingineers there can a'most live under wather; and goes down looking for diamonds, and has a sledge-hammer in their hand, brakin' the diamonds when they're too big to take them up whole, all as one as men brakin' stones an the road."
"Well, I don't want to go beyant that; but the way the lord's ingineer goes down is, he has a little bell wid him, and while