"I had na been there an hour when bang! went saxpence!"

   Anent the Irish bull, we may quote an Irishman's answer when asked to define a bull. He said:

   "If you see thirteen cows lying down in a field, and one of them is standing up, that's a bull."

   A celebrity to whom many Irish bulls have been accredited was Sir Boyle Roche. He wrote in a letter:

   "At this very moment, my dear——, I am writing this with a sword in one hand and a pistol in the other."

   He it was who in addressing the Irish House of Commons asserted stoutly:

   "Single misfortunes never come alone, and the greatest of all possible misfortune is usually followed by a greater."

   And there is the hospitable invitation of the Irishman:

   "Sir, if you ever come within a mile of my house, I hope you will stop there." And it was an Irishman who remarked to another concerning a third: "You are thin, and I am thin, but he's as thin as the two of us put together." Also, it was an Irishman who, on being overtaken by a storm, remarked to his friend: "Sure, we'll get under a tree, and whin it's wet through, faith, we'll get under another."

   Naturally, we Americans have our own bulls a plenty, and they are by no means all derived from our Irish stock. Yet, that same Irish stock contributes largely and very snappily to our fund of humor. For the matter of that, the composite character of our population multiplies the varying phases of our fun. We draw for laughter on all the almost countless racial elements that form our citizenry. And the whole content of our wit and humor is made vital by the spirit of youth. The newness of our land and nation gives zest to the pursuit of mirth. We ape the old, but fashion its semblance to suit our livelier fancy. We moralize in our jesting like the Turk,

   but are likely to veil the maxim under the motley of a Yiddish dialect. Our humor may be as meditative as the German at its best, but with a grotesque flavoring all our own. Thus, the widow, in plaintive reminiscence concerning the dear departed, said musingly:

   "If John hadn't blowed into the muzzle of his gun, I guess he'd 'a' got plenty of squirrels. It was such a good day for them!"

   And in the moralizing vein, this:

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