Softly the nurse smoothed the sufferer’s pillow. He had been admitted
only that morning, and now he looked up pleadingly at the nurse that
stood at his bedside.
“An’ phwat did ye say the docther’s name was, nurse, dear,” he asked.
“Dr. Kilpatrick,” was the reply. “He’s the senior house surgeon.”
“That settles it,” he muttered, firmly, “that docther won’t get a chanst
to operate on me.”
“Why not?” asked the nurse in surprise. “He’s a very clever man.”
“Tha he may be,” the patient said. “But me name happens to be Patrick.”
* * * * *
Patrick worked for a notoriously stingy boss and lost no chance to let
the fact be known. Once a waggish friend, wishing to twit him, remarked:
“Pat, I heard that your boss just gave you a brand-new suit of clothes.”
“No,” said Pat, “only par-rt of a suit.”
“What part?”
“The sleeves iv the vest!”
* * * * *
O’Brien died, and at the wake his friends got filled up with good
whiskey. They finally took O’Brien’s body down to Kelly’s saloon and sat
it in a chair at a table and drank his health. After several rounds they
left the place, forgetting O’Brien’s body, which they left sitting at the
table where they had placed it. Kelly wanted to close up, so he walked
over to O’Brien and shook him, trying to wake him up. Failing in his
efforts to arouse him, he became angry, and securing a club from behind
the bar, smashed O’Brien over the head with it. O’Brien fell to the
floor, and just at that moment his friends came back to get the corpse,
having remembered him. They pretended to be horrified, and charged Kelly
with having killed O’Brien with a club. “You’ve murdered him in cold
blood,” said one of the gang. “You’re a liar,” said Kelly, “he pulled a
razor on me first.”
* * * * *