"True as the gospel, Jimmy," from a beer drinker.
"Now, there's another question which we all 'ave heard of a good deal, and that's the Halabama claims. They are in a precious muddle, to be sure. They may be right and they may be wrong. But I must say that I don't see where the money is to come from to pay them."
"We'll never pay them. We aint got the "dibs;" leastways, I won't pay any of it," says an irreverent young man whose face was quite flushed with strong drink.
"Well, as far as that goes, if they are to be paid, we know it will come from the pockets of just such people as ourselves in the way of taxes. Its taxes halways."
"I differ from the gentleman who preceded me altogether. Prussia must 'ave the left bank of the Rhine, and I'll put sixteen bullets in the Pope's heart. I tell ye, gentlemen, the Ekumenikal Council will be the downfall of the Romish religion. I'll put sixteen bullets in the Pope's heart," cried out a tall, thin-faced man in a half-clerical suit of black, who got on his feet, and while in the act of energetically expressing his feeling, by a wave of his right hand carried away a glass globe shading the gaslight above his head. The man was very drunk apparently, but by his language seemed to be a person of education. The "Beefy One," who sat by my side, and who had reached his third bottle of beer, whispered to me:
"I say, yon is a fine fellow when he's sober, and can talk poetry by the yard, but he is very drunk, and when he's fuddled he will talk a man blind about the Pope. Will you have some beer? Do take a pot."
It was with some trouble that the fiery Scotch orator was induced to sit down and defer his assault upon the Pope until a more fitting occasion.
At this moment the Beefy One pointed out to me a tall, martial-looking person in black clothes, who seemed to be very restive and looked as if he wanted to speak. He was of large frame, about sixty years of age, and was apparently a man of considerable stamina and backbone. His white whiskers and neat dress gave him the look of a justice of the peace who had dropped in to take a look at the assemblage from curiosity, and to see that the public morals and the constitution were properly taken care of.
