In the course of my inquiries touching this subject I had more than once occasion to observe that an acute patterer had always a reason, or an excuse for anything. One quick-witted Irishman, whom I knew to be a Roman Catholic, was “working” a “patter against the Pope,” (not the one I have given), and on my speaking to him on the subject, and saying that I supposed he did it for a living, he replied: “That’s it then, sir. You’re right, sir, yes. I work it just as a Catholic lawyer would plead against a Catholic paper for a libel on Protestants—though in his heart he knew the paper was right—and a Protestant lawyer would defend the libel hammer and tongs. Bless you, sir, you’ll not find much more honour that way among us (laughing) than among them lawyers; not much.” The readiness with which the sharpest of those men plead the doings not only of tradesmen, but of the learned and sacred professions, to justify themselves, is remarkable.
Sometimes a dialogue is of a satirical nature. One man told me that the “Conversation between Achilles and the Wellington Statue,” of which I give the concluding moiety, was “among the best,” (he meant for profit), “but no great thing.” My informant was Achilles—or, as he pronounced it, Atchilees—and his mate was the statue, or “man on the horse.” The two lines, in the couplet form, which precede every two paragraphs of dialogue, seem as if they represent the speakers wrongfully. The answer should be attributed, in each case, to Achilles.
“The hoarse voice it came from the statue of Achilles
And ’twas answer’d thus by the man on the horse.
“Little man of little mind havn’t I now got iron blinds, and bomb-proof rails when danger assails, a cunning devised job, to keep out an unruly mob, with high and ambitious views and remarkable queer shoes; I say, Old Nakedness, I say, come and see my frontage over the way, but I believe you can’t get out after ten!
“No, you’re as near where you are as at Quatre Bras, I hear a great deal what the public think and feel, plain as the nose on your face, we’re deemed a national disgrace; they grumble at your high-ness, and at my want of shyness, and say many unpleasant things of Ligny and Marchienne!
“The hoarse voice it came from the statue of Achilles
And ’twas answer’d thus by the man on the horse.
“Ah! its a few days since the Nive, where Soult found me all alive, and the grand toralloo I made at Bordeaux; wasn’t I in a nice mess, when Boney left Elba and left no address, besides 150 other jobs with the chill off I could bring to view.
“But then people will say, poor unfortunate Ney, and that you were dancing at a ball, and not near Hogumont at all, and that the job of St. Helena might have been done rather cleaner, and it was a shameful go to send Sir Hudson Lowe, and that you took particular care of No. 1, at Waterloo.