"
"Putting a pest there, ye mean!" returned Lanigan.
"Is that the blood o' yer race speaking?"
"No, it's the common sense up here," declared the commander, tapping his
knuckles against the side of his head. "Look, here, Mulcahy, my man!
You're spouting about a subject that's too big for me to understand or you
to explain. And that's why you're muddling yourself and mixing up the
minds of others with your questions. I ask you no questions. I'm going to
tell you something--and it's so! If the kids in your family was down with
the measles, and the missus was all snarled up with the tickdoolooroo and
you wasn't feeling none too well yourself, what with a hold-over, a black
eye, and a lot o' bumps, what would you--Hold on! I say, I ask no
questions! I know the answer. If Tommy O'Rourke came howling and whooping
into your back door and asked you to go out and shin up a tree and fetch
down his tomcat, ye'd tell Tommy to bounce along and mind his own matters
till ye'd settled your own--and if he didn't go you'd kick him out."
"I'm discussing th' rights and wrongs of a suffering people."
"And playing safe for yourself because the subject is so big--and putting
others in wrong because they can't settle all the troubles of the universe
offhand to suit ye! My family is America, Mulcahy! It ought to be yours,
first, last, and all the time.
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