"Is it pride in this grreat show that gives me the pleasure on this
occasion unequalled in me mimory? No!
"What is it, ladies and gintlemen? What is it?
"Gintlemen and ladies," he says, "'tis no other than the approach of
the public ciremonial of the rite of mathrimony between mesilf,
Michael Flannagan, an' a party that has no notion what I'm talkin'
about, but is further named in this docyment, which if your riverence
will now shtep up on the platform, he will find to be signed and
sealed by the honourable town clerk of this pasthoral an' marine
community. Ladies an' gintlemen, was ye iver invited before to the
weddin' of a man of me impressive looks an' oratorical gifts, that
first published his own banns, an' thin proposed, in your intelligent
an' sympathetic prisence, to a lady of exalted ancesthry an' pre-eminent
fame? Ye was not? Ye have now that unparallelled experience. For,
as ye see by this license an' authority, this lady, the Lineal Descendant
of Mexican Emperors, is known an' admired in private life as Madame
Anatolia Bill.'"
With that he stepped back, and offered his hand, and said something
to Madame Bill that was lost in the cheering of the audience.
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