MR. DOOLEY AT WORK AGAIN:*

IT is a great pleasure to see 'Mr. Dooley at work again and to find that the tempest which has just passed over his head and ours has left us almost as ready to laugh, and he almost as ready to provoke laughter, as -before. It is the metier of Mr. Dooley. to be shrewd—not merely to nick the thing or the mood of the moment with the lucky word, but to touch the thing or the mood critically and let us hear whether it sounds • Mr. Doasy on'Making a Will; and other Necessary Evils. London : Wm. Heinemann. (73.13d. net.]

hollow or solid. Others—we confess ourselves to be among them—will praise and prefer the humanity, the good humour, the sweetness and light of Artemus Ward. Others will praise and rejoice in Mark Twain's spaciousness of jest, what we shall hardly err if we call the metaphysics of humour. Yet others most enjoy Professor Leacook's romantic strain and laugh with the man who has- made A, B and C, I) of the arithmetic books living, toiling, breathing creatures.

" Whose-joys we can unravel, whose hopes we may fulfil, Our spirit tracing .backward the river to the rill.

But for the plain man—the man who prefers prose to poetry and likes his humour with a " punch back of. it"—Mr. Dooley is the man. He is in the comedy of life • what the quick lunch is in Broadway. In the " git on or git out" style. he has no equal.

It must not be supposed that because we think these things the leading characteristics of Mr. Dooley we deny him any touch of sentiment or even poetry. He has: the gift of both sentiment and poetry even though he displays it rarely. He. is never better, however-, than when he- is -tearing the hair out of politicians or exhibiting them, to us- in their least amiable moods. His description of the political. orator and the gift of oratory is so perfect that we must quote it, though perhaps it is not the most characteristic quotation which we could have

chosen :-

" An' afther all what is an orator but a kind iv musicyan or pote ? There's no form- iv amusement that I like- betther after a week's hard worrnk thin to go to a picnic in Derwner's Grove, an be lulled to dhreanas or. excited to a. frinzy be an oration fr'm a good orator. I've heard orations that I cud do a .two-step to, an manny -a time- have I gone home hummin' bits out iv a.speech on th! tariff ton:iv:till. Tle. night I heard. Willum Jennings Bryan's cross-iv-goold speech I wint over to Hogan's House an' picked. out th' chime with wan finger on th' pianny. It was that musical. Ivry gnreat orator- ought• to be accompanied' be an orchesthry or, at--worst, a pianist who wild play trills while th' artist was refreshin' himsilf with; a' glass iv ice wather.- I don't think th' Chat=talky people. know how to advertise their headliner. If 1„was thim I'd put. out bills, like this.:

ONPARALELD ATTHRACTIONS

At Odd Fellows' Hall, Choosdah night, will be- prisinted this-mammoth array iv

onheerd- iv cilibrities.:

HIVENLY ENDOWED CHILDHER IV.

ORPEUS TH' SWISS YODELLERS TH' JAPANESE JUGGLERS IN. THEM NERVE-SHATTHRIN' AN' HEART DENTIN:MN' SPECIALTY ZEHE AN' CY

WURRULD'S 'OHAMPEEN WOOD CHOPPERS- ESTELLE—TR' MONTMORENCIES—CLARENCE THRICE BICYCLE

RIDERS

Th! whole dazzlin' an' megatheryal display- to close with th' first appearance in this city iv TH' GREATEST IV NACU-RAI, ORATORS.

WILLUM JENNINGS BRYAN

WHO WILL RENDER HIS CILLYBRATED BARYTONE SOLO : " TH' PRINCE IV PEACE " (ACCOMPANIED ON TH' PICCOLO BE PROPISSOR WOODROW WILSON). N.13.—MISTHER BRYAN IS TH' ON'Y Lyme BARYTONE WHO CAN REACH- HIGH' C WITHOUT srawnne ON HIS TOES' Admission : Gents, wan dollar ; gents- accompanied be ladies, wan-fifty ; childher, twenty-five tints. Infants in ar-rums or out iv thim not admitted at-anny price: " We haven't been fair to orators in th' past We've been so thrilled be these gr-reat artists that we've taken thim away fr'm their career an' put thim into Govemmint jobs, makin' mere dhrudges iv thim whin they might betther be out in th' wurruld softenin' th' hearts iv men with their mellow notes. Me hind. Gallagher was th' gr-reatest campaign pote that iver lived._ He wrote a pome wanst beginnin" We'll carry this ward f'r Hopkins fr'm the mountains to th' sea,' an' be hivens while he was singin' it I thought they was mountains an' sea in th' ward. But the nex' day I come to th' con-clusyion that he meant fr'm th' steel wurniks- to th' South Branch iv th' river. After th' iliction he put in an applycation f'r superin. tindint iv bridges."

The essay continues in this rich and delightful vein, but though we cannot quote it all we must find room for one more remark:—

" It don't follow that because a man can. write or talk beauti- fully about plumbing that. ye hire him to mend th' kitchen sink. Ye do not. Ye say to ye'ersilf : Demostheens moved me so much be his iloquent appeal f'r good tplumbin' that I'll Bind Pr a plumber to mend th' waste-pipe.' " Equally delightful is .the aphorism, " Orators and iditors sildom do well hi office." In the end comes the- inevitable Dooley back-hander. When Mr. Hennessy asked whether an orator over changed his friends' votes, Mr. Dooley replies :- " Always, me frind,' said- Mr. Dooley impressively ; then, with a convincing wave of his hand : If he's a bad orator I

vote again him instinctively, an' if he's a good wan who's swayed me soul I always do so as a kind iv an act of conthrition f'r lottin' me feelin's make a fool iv me.' "

We could, of course, go on quoting indefinitely from Mr. Dooley, but we must be content with one more quotation from the delightful essay on " Famous Men " :- "What makes a man gr-reat annyhow ? It isn't because he's good, though it may be because he isn't. Manny a hero iv antikity has a pitcher iv somewan else in th' geoid watch th' boys in th' office give him f'r Chris'm.as. It ain't because he's betther iddycated thin others. There ar-re fellows tachin' school in Waukegan that eud.spell betther thin Alexandher th' Gr-reat. It ain't because he's pretty. An album filled with pitchers iv th' gr-reatest cud on'y be opened afther dark. It ain't because they're brave. Manny a man has voted th' Ray-publican tiokey • in Mississippi without even gettin' his name on th' tally sheet. It ain't because they're forchnit. Th' on'y fellows ye remimber who wint up in flyin' masheens last year ar-re thim that come down too quick. An' it ain't because they plan things in advance, f'r there was Columbus, whose name is on manny•lamp posts, an' he didn't find what he wint lookin' f'r, Hogan tells me; an' it wasn't America he discovered at first but a place called Watling's island that he bumped into on his way to Chiny, th' poor deluded Eyetalyan thinkin' Chiny was• somewheres near Phillydelphy. So there ye. arre. Befure ye pick out th' gr-reatest men ye've got to tell me what is ye'er idee iv a gr-reat man. Father Kelly says a man's gr-reat who -can do th' wan thing he knows how to do betther thin. most annywan else. That is, if he has th' luck to cash in. Be that rule I can prove ye're th' akel iv Joolyus Cayzar, f'r I've observed ye'er scientific handlin' iv a shovel, me boy, though I've niver mentioned it f'r fear iv turnin' ye'er head."

And so good-bye for the time to Mr. Dooley. It is. really delightful to find him not only as laughter-moving. but as original as. ever. There, indeed, is his special glory. He is apparently inexhaustible. Although he always throws his thoughts into the same mould, the present writer, who has read, he believes, every word that Mi. Dooley has written, can remember no case of repetition. Mr. Dooley would-find something quickening anclexhilarating in a meeting to audit the accounts of a bankrupt Burial Board.