PAT WAS SMOKING
Reading edition
Scene: A smoking compartment in a British railway carriage.
Old Gent (to Pat going home to Monaghan on furlough)—“Young man, allow me to inform you that out of every ten cases of men suffering from paralysis of the tongue, nine are due to smoking.”
Pat—“Allow me to inform you, sir, that out of every ten men suffering from broken noses, nine are due to the habit of not minding their own business.”