They tried hard, but they couldn't get the Yankee tourist to admit that
he saw anything in Europe that could beat things at home. When he passed
from Italy to Switzerland, they asked him whether he had noticed the
magnificence of the Alps, and he acknowledged, "Waal, now, come to think
of it, I guess I did pass some risin' ground." And before this they had
showed him Vesuvius, and asked him what he thought of that, and whether
there was anything in his country could equal it. And he said, "Pooh!
Why, we've got a waterfall in my country so big that if you had it here
and turned it into your burning mountain, it would put out all that fire
in just six seconds."
An American-born Irishman paid a visit to the home of his ancestors, and
they proudly showed him the lakes of Killarney. "Killarney, is it?"
said he. "We've got lakes in America so big that you could take all the
lakes in Ireland an' throw 'em in, and it wouldn't raise the water an
inch. An' as fer yer city o' Dublin--let me tell ye, me friend, we've
got States over there so big that ye could put Dublin away in one corner
of 'em, an' ye'd never know it was there, except for the smell o' the
whiskey."
These honored citizens could well appreciate the toast--"The United
States: bounded on the east by primeval chaos; on the north by the
Aurora borealis; on the west by the precession of the equinoxes, and on
the south by the Day of Judgment!"