Best of Myles

by Flann O'Brien

  ‘Dear Tom: Thanks very much for the books which arrived safely. I am going to Cork on Tuesday for two days and will give you a ring when I get back.

  Yours, Jack.

  P.S. I saw your brother at the races on Saturday, but I didn’t get talking to him. J.’

  That is one kind of futility and you are as familiar with it as I am. Or how often have you seen this:

  ‘Dear Tom: The books arrived safely and I am obliged to you for sending them. I will return them as soon as possible.

  Yours sincerely, Jack.

  P.S. I hope all at Number 8 have escaped the flu D.V. May was complaining on Saturday but she’s fine today. J.’

  Please note that the ridiculous addendum is always initialled and thus authenticated. As if anybody could doubt the authorship of it. Ladies often use the P.S. as a coy and rather (?) charming sally.

  ‘Dear Tom: I will be only too happy to go to the dance with you on Tuesday.

  “Betty”.

  P.S. Thanks for ignoring me when we met yesterday in Dame Street—B.’

  Yah!

  The P.S., however, can occasionally have a legitimate office in the craft of literary nastiness.

  A civil servant once received a letter from his superiors somewhat as follows:

  ‘A Chara: It is noted that in submitting your account for travelling expenses you have entered a sum of £7 10s in respect of car-hire between Ballymick and Ballypat. The distance between these two points as the crow flies is 21/2 miles. I am to request an immediate explanation of the entry referred to.’

  Your man writes back:

  ‘A Chara: In reply to your minute (ref. No. XZ 86231/Zb/600/7/43) of the 4th instant, I desire to inform you that a deep and unnavigable river separates the towns of Ballymick and Ballypat and travellers are compelled to take a car fifteen miles upstream to the only bridge which affords a crossing.

  ‘Mise, le meas,

  Seán O’Pinion.

  P.S.—I am not a crow—S.O’P.’

  If I had any weakness in this direction, I would devise a mysterious literary embellishment to be known as the antescript.

  ‘A.S. How about that fiver I lent you in 1917?—M. na gC.

  ‘Dear Tom—The books which you were kind enough to send me do not appear to be approved by H.M. Board of Censors and I cannot therefore peruse them. Believe me, my dear Tom,

  Yours very sincerely,

  M. na gC.’

  That sort of thing.

  Or go the other hog—start off with the briefest letter in the world—

  ‘Dear Tom—Thanks. Yours, M. na gC—’ and then a P.S. running into 20 pages both sides of the paper and coming back to the top of page one—Hegel, Nietzsche, Emerson, Gide, Beethoven, Suarez—all the boys trotted out in reams of pretentious blather.

  What can one say, I wonder, of the dreadful creatures who are addicted to the P.P.S.? Say in a family newspaper, I mean?

  ‘P.S. Hoping all at Number 8 are A.1.—J.

  ‘P.P.S. May sends her regards to Bella and hopes to call on Tuesday D.V.—J.’

  The Plain People of Ireland: We’ll write what we like.

  Myself: Eh?

  The Plain People of Ireland: We’ll write what we like in our own pairsonal letthers.

  I make no reply to that, I do not wish to offend anybody, plain or coloured, but I do hope my remarks will be taken to Harte, marked, noted, pondered and committed to the manuscript of memory.

  P.S. hoping this reaches you as it leaves me, in the pink. M. na gC.

  ‘ON THE OTHER hand’, one noticed the somewhat didactic Editor saying on Saturday last: ‘Mr de Valera is asking for carte blanche to give effect to his preposterous policy of a Gaelic-speaking, potato-digging Republic.’

  In my capacity as scientist, I am terribly interested in that sort of writing. The carte, of course, would have to be blanche. (The war.) There hasn’t been a carte noire come into this country for near on four year; they’re not making them now. What I want to know is—what is the opposite of a Gaelic-speaking potato-digging Republic? Granted that the opposite of Gaelic-speaking is English-speaking and that the opposite of republic is monarchy—what is the opposite of potato-digging?

  No answer.

  Very well. Are we then to be an English-speaking potato-digging monarchy? What king would dream of presiding over a confraternity of harsh-voiced peasants eternally engaged in exhuming spuds? Or forsooth, would our new rulers be a dynasty of British Queens?

  I hold that potatoes are terribly important. They make admirable feeding for man and beast. You remember what happened nearly a hundred years ago? We were largely Gaelic-speaking then but owing to circumstances over which we had no control, the potato-digging had to be discontinued for a year or two. The result was catastrophic. The firm was, of course, under different management then.

  Can this distaste for potato-digging be due to the foot with which the digging is done?

  LOOK OUT

  Talking of potatoes, here’s a gambit that you must look out for. Murder is justified in the circumstances.

  Two men go into a restaurant. One of them picks up the menu idly and says Oh good! There are new potatoes on the card today!

  The other man doesn’t seem to understand and says I beg your pardon?

  New potatoes, the first man says, only a shilling extra.

  The other now looks genuinely puzzled. He searches his friend’s face. I’m afraid I don’t quite get you, he says. Exactly what do you mean? New potatoes?

  Naturally this leads to some exasperation. I see there are new potatoes on the card today, that’s all, the first man says rather shortly.

  New … potatoes?

  The second man has now built up a pucker of frowns on his face to show that he is completely at sea. He stares, lost. Then slowly … very slowly … light is seen to break. He has a clue. He grasps at it. Soon the meaning of his friend’s remark is flooding out upon him. His face becomes smooth. He smiles.

  Oh … I get you. Of course. New potatoes …

  Here there is a carefully-nursed pause.

  We have had them at home, of course, for the last three months. St Patrick’s Day, I think, we had the first.

  Another brief pause.

  They were a bit late this year, of course. Last year it was about the first of March we had them, I think …

  (It’s at the second pause you use the gun.)

  Miscellaneous

  THE NEWS that my name appeared in Stubbs last week will come as a pleasant surprise to my enemies. A green satisfaction will fill their souls.

  The Plain People of Ireland: Your enemies? What enemies?

  Myself: I can mention no names. Be assured, however, that there are hordes of them in every walk of life. They ask nothing better than to do me an ill turn. They are working and scheming against me night and day. They pursue me with infinite venom and cunning. Slander and calumny, whispers in the ear. The unseen hand, backstairs influence, I believe our friend was up in court last week, but had it kept out of the papers. Is that so? On what charge? O you’ll laugh when you hear. Listen (whisper-whisper-whisper). WHAT! Are you serious? O it’s a true bill, had it from the Guard. And another thing, I believe the unfortunate wife gets a hammering every night. In at ten past ten full of prunes and porter. Where’s the cigarette-butt I left on the mantelpiece this morning? You don’t know? Don’t you? Well, take that!

  Any mud is good enough so long as it sticks. Back-slandering and poison-pen letters. Get him one way if you can’t get him another. False friends everywhere. The small corrosive word half-uttered in the right place. He’s no good I’m telling you, he’s no good. No matter where I go my traducers have been there before me. Sorry, sir, you can’t come in here, sir. Them’s my orders, sir, Sorry, sir.

  No explanation. If our friend puts his nose in tonight, slam the door in his face. Never mind, do as you’re told. No, don’t say I said so. Just slam the door. And see that you make no mistake about it. We don’t want that p
articular customer in here.

  Even my young sons, my innocent little lads of twelve. Hello, sonny, I believe your poor father is locked up again. He’s not? He’s laid up? In bed? Ah, the poor man. Well, he didn’t sound very ill at three in the morning last Saturday night when he nearly pulled my door down and smashed four bottles on the step. The poor man is laid up, is he? Dear, dear, dear.

  Of course, if they think that this campaign will deflect me from my course or abate by one tittle my advocacy of the far-reaching reforms to which I have dedicated my life, they are vastly mistaken.

  Further comment is superfluous. The whole thing would be humorous were it not so tragic.

  THE MYLES na gCopaleen Banking Corporation is experimenting with a new kind of cheque book. The whole thing would be laughable were it not so tragic. Each cheque looks perfectly ordinary, but when it is drawn, cashed and returned to the Bank, strange things happen behind closed doors. The Bank’s officials get to work on it, and if you could only see them at it, you would observe that each cheque is in reality two cheques cleverly stuck together and separated by a sheet of fine carbon. Thus, when you draw a cheque in favour of ‘Self’ for ten pounds, you get that much money, but the Bank gets two cheques for ten pounds. Furthermore, since the genuine endorsement is on the back of the second cheque and the drawer’s genuine hand-writing on the face of the first, both can readily be established, in a court of law or elsewhere, to be genuine documents, notwithstanding any minor pretexts for suspicion; it is a simple matter to forge a colourable endorsement on the back of the ‘genuine’ top cheque.

  All this means, of course, that our clients are unwittingly spending their substance twice as fast as they think they are and qualifying speedily for a permanent abode in that populous thoroughfare, Queer St. And the Bank gets more and more dough.

  I WILL TELL you a good one. It was tried on us recently at the Myles na gCopaleen Central Banking Corporation (all stand and uncover, please), and we were not the slowest to learn our lesson and take the recipe for our very own. It is a new dodge and one that will save you hundreds of pounds a year if it is used intelligently. Cross that out and say thousands. It is a secret weapon that will close the doors of our fancy competitors in College Green if you see fit to use it against them. (And why shouldn’t you, pray, what about the £31 10. 0, is that forgotten already?)

  It is a new sort of ink. It looks no different from the sort you use every day. It is blue-black, bright, thin, clean, and runs like sweet fancy through your fountain pen. It has this great virtue, though. Six hours after you write something with it, the writing has completely disappeared. The paper is again restored to its virgin white. Not a speck of ‘ink’ remains. Just think about that for a minute.

  You walk into your bank, take out your cheque-book and special pen and write out a ‘Pay Self £20’. You get your money, three fives and five singles and thanks very much, it’s a bit cold today but sure what can you expect in the month of March? Out you go. That evening the poor banker is puzzled to find a completely blank cheque among the bundle marked ‘paid’.

  In the meantime you have not been idle. The fifty publicans to whom you are all too well known are called upon. Tobacconists, grocers, bookies and solicitors are whipped in. Just a little bit short, old man, could you let me have a fiver, will I make it out to yourself or the firm? Thanks very much. The following morning a hundred dupes are holding a clean blank cheque between finger and thumb, gazing at it with a wild surmise. By the way, you owe me £35, I’ve got your I.O.U. here. Have you? Show me it. That’s not an I.O.U. man, where’s my signature? Don’t try to pull any quick ones like that, old boy, I owe you nothing.

  Write to me at this office for a small bottle of the stuff. Twenty-five shillings a time and no cheques taken in payment.

  Sure I knew them well, man, used to live beyond in Dartry, the eldest girl was very delicate and the son turned out to be a very bad bit of work, sold all the furniture to buy drink when the dacent ould couple were having their three days in the Isle of Man and then skipped it to America, a wild no-good waster with a whiskey nose on him before he was in long trousers, he was never seen or heard of from that good day to this. A fierce disappointment to his father, ould Shaun Mohican, the dacentest man that ever stood in shoe-leather, an out and out Parnellite that follyed the Chief to the very end, never wavered like so manny more. The Mohicans were always there when Ireland called, I knew the uncle that was in the Connaught Rangers, in a day’s walk you wouldn’t meet a dacenter man than the Star Mohican, the family came from Meath originally and were very big people down there in the days gone by. Ah yes. Of course you’ll find one bad egg in the biggest basket. It takes all classes to make a world. Who? Me? Oh, another bottle of stout, I suppose.

  WILL OLD Ireland survive? Not unless we work. We will survive if we deserve survival. Our destiny is in our own hands. Quisque est faber fortunae suae. We must pull together, sink our differences and behave with dignity and decorum. And above all, work. Work for Ireland. How queer that sounds. Not die, mind you. Work. Work for the old land. And at evening time, when reclining at our frugal fireside, saturated by the noble tiredness that is conferred by honest toil, in the left hand let there be no alien printed trash but the first book of O’Growney. There, then, is an ideal for you, something that you can do for Ireland. ‘I will let no evening pass without an hour at O’Growney.’ The old tongue. The old tongue that was spoken by our forefathers. Learning Irish and all working together—for Ireland. Let us do that and we will surely survive. Erin go bragh! Unfurl the old flag, three crowns on a blue field, the old flag of Erin. Our hearts are sound and our arms are strong. And what is our watchword? ‘Work.’ Let our watchword henceforth be that small word of four letters—w-o-r-k. WORK!

  Next speech, next speech, please. Clapping. Old slow senile chairman. An hour standing up and another hour sitting down again. That cold whipping wind, you could get your death here, I was lost without that glass of malt, it’s always safer to have something warm under the belt when you’re above on the platform. Thin sullen crowd. Here only because there’s no pictures on Sunday. Next speech.

  Yields to no man in his respect for last speaker. While the integrity of his outlook, his fine national record, the lucidity of his thought and his ability to marshal facts must needs command respect, nevertheless, ventures with all due humility, to voice some small doubts as to the ultimate expediency of many of his more radical proposals. Turn to question of Irish language. Always made it a point to keep an open mind. Not out of place to remark spoke it at a time when it was neither profitable nor popular. (Cheers.) But cultural movements dwarfed by present world events. Considered opinion that we are witnessing titanic struggle between forces of good and evil, the end of which no man can foresee and few could be so foolhardy as to predict. Young men, aye, and young women leaving the country in ever-increasing numbers, drain on our national resources. Behoves us to move with caution. Something must be done; words not enough; promises not enough. Country calls for action on part of Government. Only most drastic curtailment essential services, elimination unnecessary luxuries, cutting our organisation to bone, reduce overheads, stringent regulations, mobilise country’s resources, paramount importance of agricultural industry, community must stand shoulder to shoulder in hour of peril.

  Next speech. Hurry please. Get this thing over. A drunk on our left trying to heckle. A rossiner wouldn’t be bad, have a double one after this. Next please.

  Much pleasure rise speak today this distinguished gathering; particularly on same platform last speaker. Last time we spoke together great Longford Rally 1829; doubtless he’s forgotten. We’ve gone our different ways since then. Suppose no two men in this country more representative divergent poles political thought. Not what came here to say. Came say few words present crisis dark clouds lowering over fair face this country poverty unemployment transport problems turf hunger; country never greater danger. But spirit Irish people will prevail as ever, come to top
. Only solution to problems before us is serious interest revival tongue our fathers spoke. Great revival work must go on. National heritage, nothing worth having left if not saved, receding rapidly in west. Save ere it is too late, only badge of true nationhood.

  (Loud mad frenzied cheering.)

  OUR AIM, by the way, is to give complete satisfaction. If this column is not in good condition when you receive it, return it to this office and your money will be refunded. In addition, you will receive six stouts in a handsome presentation cooper. When the column is written, it weighs exactly 0.03 grammes. Due to heat, evaporation or damp, the contents may become impaired or discoloured. In case of complaint, return it to this office with the rest of the newspaper and we will gladly replace it, or, at your option, return your money in full. Our aim is to make every customer a friend for life. We wish to give you complete satisfaction. We are your obsequious handwashing servants. We are very meek and humble. One frown from you and we feel that we have made a mess of our whole lives.

  As the man said.

  MY CLAIM

  Recently, in mixed company, when boasts and brags of every kind were flying in and out through the hot murk of words, I ventured to make the claim (not without some show of humility and modesty) that I was the greatest living swine. Instantly sharp cries of dissent rang out on every side. How could I say such a thing, I was asked, when we have so-and-so and so-and-so in the country? The names mentioned were those of public and semi-public personalities that you know and that I know. What an exquisite pleasure it would be to print them here! But look, draw up your own list. Spend half-an-hour pondering our unique national assortment of cods and humbugs. Indeed, there is one so obvious that his name will leap to everybody’s mind—none other than—