(_Some Preparatory Memoranda._)
1. To get up the early Celtic history, and establish my undoubted right
to call myself an Irishman, by tracing my pedigree directly back to
FERGUS THE FIRST.
2. Lend colourable certainty to this by hiring a low-comedy Donnybrook
Fair suit from NATHAN'S, and wearing it on all public occasions.
3. Make arrangements to take a dozen lessons in jig-dancing and
shillelagh-flourishing from some recognised Music-Hall celebrity engaged
in this special line of business.
4. Get the words of the _We'll have the Tail off the Cow, Pat_, and
other patriotic songs, by heart, and have an encore verse ready in case
of being called upon to give it in any popular emergency.
5. Familiarise myself with the use of such expressions as "Whist!
Whist!" "Arrah! are ye shure now," "divil a bit!" and other Irish
colloquialisms, and accustom myself to interspersing my orations with
shrill whoops to give emphasis to a sentence or point to a period as
occasion may require or suggest.
6. Conceive a defence of boycotting and bring it oratorically, in an
airy and genial way, within a measurable distance of legality, and back
it up if possible with some biblical and Homeric analogies.
7. Study the Plan of Campaign practically, by hurling boiling pitch,
meal, lime and brickbats through a besieged cabin-window into the faces
of imaginary constabulary without.
8. Habituate myself to mild indulgence in "potheen," occasional drinking
of confusion to the "Sassenach," and to taking care not to lose sight of
my return ticket.
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