Shamus the pub keeper was mopping
the drops of Guinness that had landed on the floor furiously.
"Why are yea mopping away in that fashion for? Are yea expecting
some kind of special visitor?" asked one of the men at the bar. Shamus
answered "No one is coming, but last night someone was here."
The men at the bar looked a scant puzzled, then one of them asked "Well
then, tell us who it was?" "Last night, as I was sleeping upstairs,
I was awaken by this tremendous racket going on down here at the bar.
Not knowing who the devil it could be at that late hour, I climb out of
me bed and found me cain, ye know the one I carry to rap on the likes of
ye fellows when ye get out of hand." The men at the bar lean over their
tall classes as Shamus holds the cain in one hand and the mop in the other.
"Walking down the steps I noticed that all of the lights were still off,
and only by the light of the moon could I see across the pub." "Well, what
did yea see?" one of the men shouted. "I saw nothing! Nothing I tells yea!
I thought to myself, 'Could this be a Pooka?' So I moved myself a
little closer to the bar and right there," pointing to the floor
"I saw it. A mouse with his whiskers wet from a bit of split Guinness
and his fists movin' about in the air making all of the noise of the Earth."
Shamus goes on. "And do ye know what he was shouting?"
They all shook their heads.
"He was yelling out, 'Bring on
the cat! Bring on the cat!'
A joke heard in many
a pub in both Ireland and else where