(FORTUNE Magazine) – Except for the author's opinions on substantive issues, Tip O'Neill's memoirs make marvelous reading. The former Speaker is a great storyteller, and like Jimmy Durante he has a million of them -- irreverent tales about bygone Boston politicians with names like Beef Stew McDonough and Jimmy the Whore, but also stories out of school about the Kennedys and other occupants of the White House in recent decades. My own favorite in Man of the House (Random House, $19.95) is O'Neill's account of a 1960 Kennedy fund-raiser in St. Louis, hosted by brewer Augie Busch. When the evening was over, Augie, Tip, and J.F.K. ducked into a men's room to discuss the take. Busch reported with satisfaction that they had raised $29,000 -- $17,000 in cash and $12,000 in checks. ''Great,'' said Kennedy. ''Give me the cash and give Kenny O'Donnell the checks.'' O'Neill's comment (to himself): ''Jeez. This business is no different if you're running for ward leader or President of the United States.'' O'Neill is hard on the incumbent President, whom he regards as totally incompetent. ''Ronald Reagan,'' in Tip's judgment, ''lacked the knowledge he should have had in every sphere . . .'' But Tip himself has some amazing notions rattling around in his head. He states that in 1934 ''most Americans . . . had absolutely no idea that Franklin Roosevelt was disabled.'' He believes that any U.S. attack on Nicaragua really could be ''another Vietnam.'' He believes that Americans today have higher incomes and more leisure than they had in the Thirties because of -- guess what? -- government welfare programs. ''Although poverty has certainly not been eliminated,'' he tells us in an epilogue, ''we were able to get the poverty rate down to 10% in 1980.'' (The correct figure, incidentally, is 13%.) The antecedent of that ''we'' appears to be politicians. Reagan, and for that matter Durante, would know better.