Harvey J. O'Higgins

“ An' whin Tweed run fer Alderman from the Sivinth, we both woorked to see which cud woork the hardest—an' Tweed wint in, with a toorch-light percession an' a hill av a jambaree—an' I got me job in the Coort House—an' Butch got a plintiful promise av big things to be."
Feeny snorted. "It's a dirty game, politics. They're a gang o' fakers."
"It's like iv'rythin' ilse," the watchman replied. "It's what we makes av it. But it takes big men to play it big, an' the little men it makes little shysters." he reached out his black claw of a hand. "Man alive, if we Irish had the men to lead us! ”

“ What can one man do to right what we've all av us made wrongs an' our fathers befoore us? We must make oursilves right first, Feeny, an' we can't do that. 'Tis in the nature av us—deep, deep! 'Tis like Jawn Y. McCabe that was sint up the river fer falsifyin' his register lists—an' I've seen him readin' his Bible in his cell iv'ry mornin', an' niver cud he see that he'd done wrong—niver' ... Tis our nature to folly the man an' niver the principle—to love and hate onreasonin'—to be all heart an' no head! ”

“ Me that dare not go into a crowd—that dare not so much as inter a departmint store—fer the fear av what might happen to drag me back to me cell! Out on commuted sintince fer good conduc'! All the life wrung from me, drop by drop, an' the dried rind av me thrown out here in the gutter! Take yer lesson here, Feeny. Take it here, fer it's bitter teachin' yeh'll get from thim! ”

“ Feeny had been stooping down to listen. He straightened up now, filled his cheek with a ball of fine cut, and leaned back against the door-post.
The watchman wagged his head. "Niver the bate av Conny Duffy to sing—an' Butcher Sleeman to fight—till I wint at 'm barehanded, in the bunkroom, an' pounded his faytures into a mince. An' after that I was 'Banty' Doyle, the 'Tirror av the Tigers,' no-less—an' me two eyes blue-black fer a week. 'Yeh're a beauty,' Molly says to me. 'So I am,' says I. 'But I'm a plaster cast to yer frien' Butch Sleeman,' I says. ”

“ If yez can't fix me togither, I know a man that can.' An' I slid out av hospital, an' crawled to the depot, an' the nex' thing I rimimber I was bein' bandaged be ol' Doc. McGrath right here in Cherry Street. But how I got there, no one niver cud tell."
Feeny coughed apologetically.
The old man hastened to add: "Anyways it made no matter. Me time was up, an' I was no good fer soldierin' with the hole in the hinge av me hand. Not a bit. Not a bit ... Rot the pipe! Have yeh the makin's av a smoke about yeh, at all?" ”