I like what I have been drinking better than what I have been hearing

From A treasury of American anecdotes; sly, salty, shaggy stories of heroes and hellions, beguilers and buffoons, spellbinders and scapegoats, gagsters and gossips, from the grassroots and sidewalks of America by Benjamin Albert Botkin. 

“Uncle Jed,” said Ezra one day, “ben’t you gittin’ a leetle hard of hearin’?” 

“Yes,” said Uncle Jed, “I’m afraid I’m gittin’ a mite deef.” 

Whereupon Ezra made Uncle Jed go down to Boston to see an ear doctor.

Uncle Jed came back. And Ezra asked what happened. “Well,” said Uncle Jed, “that doctor asked me if I had been drinkin' any.  And I said, ‘Yes, I been drinkin’ a mite.’

“And then the doctor said, ‘Well, Jed, I might just as well tell you now that if you don’t want to lose your hearin’, you’ve got to give up drinkin’.’

“Well,” said Uncle Jed, “I thought it over; and then I said, ‘Doc, I like what I’ve been drinkin’ so much better than what I’ve been a-hearin’ [lately] that I reckon I’ll jest keep on gittin’ deef!’”