“By all that’s good,” says the Pope, “I often hard ov the imperance ov you Irish afore,” says he, “but I never expected to be called a saint in my own house either by Irishman or Hottentot. I’ll till you what, Misther Maguire,” says he, “if you can’t keep a civil tongue in your head, you had betther be walking off wid yourself; for I beg lave to give you to undherstand, that it won’t be for the good ov your health if you call me by sich an outprobrious epithet again,” says he.
“Oh, indeed! then things is come to a purty pass,” says his Riv’rence (the dear funny soul that he ever was!) “when the likes of you compares one of the Maguires ov Tempo wid a wild Ingine! Why, man alive, the Maguires was kings ov Fermanagh three thousand years afore your grandfather, that was the first ov your breed that ever wore shoes and stockings” (I’m bound to say, in justice to the poor Prodesan, that this was all spoken by his Riv’rence by way of a figure ov spache), “was sint his Majesty’s arrand to cultivate the friendship of Prince Lee Boo in Botteney Bay! Oh Bryan dear,” says he, letting on to cry, “if you were alive to hear a boddagh Sassenagh like this casting up his counthry to one ov the name ov Maguire!”
“In the name ov God,” says the Pope, very solemniously, “what is the maning ov all this at all at all?” says he.
“Sure,” says his Riv’rence, whispering to him across the table, “sure you know we’re acting a conthravarsy, and you tuck the part ov the Prodesan champion. You wouldn’t be angry wid me, I’m sure, for sarving out the heretic to the best ov my ability.”
“Oh begad, I had forgot,” says the Pope, the good-natured ould crethur; “sure enough you were only taking your part, as a good Milesian Catholic ought, agin the heretic Sassenagh. Well,” says he, “fire away now, and I’ll put up wid as many conthroversial compliments as you plase to pay me.”
“Well, then, answer me my question, you santimonious ould dandy,” says his Riv’rence.
“In troth, then,” says the Pope, “I dunna which ’ud be the biggest lie: to my mind,” says he, “the one appears to be about as big a bounce as the other.”
“Why, then, you poor simpleton,” says his Riv’rence, “don’t you persave that, forbye the advantage the gandher ’ud have in the length ov his neck, it ’ud be next to onpossible for the turkey-cock lying thataway to see what he was about, by rason ov his djollars and other accouthrements hanging back over his eyes? The one about as big a bounce as the other! Oh, you misfortunate crethur! if you had ever larned your A B C in theology, you’d have known that there’s a differ betuxt them two lies so great, that, begad, I wouldn’t wondher if it ’ud make a balance ov five years in purgathory to the sowl that ’ud be in it. Ay, and if it wasn’t that the Church is too liberal entirely, so she is, it ’ud cost his heirs and succissors betther nor ten pounds to have him out as soon as the other. Get along, man, and take half-a-year at dogmatical theology: go and read your Dens, you poor dunce, you!”
“Raally,” says the Pope, “you’re making the heretic’s shoes too hot to hould me. I wondher how the Prodesans can stand afore you at all.”
“Don’t think to delude me,” says his Riv’rence, “don’t think to back out ov your challenge now,” says he, “but come to the scratch like a man, if you are a man, and answer me my question. What’s the rason, now, that Julius Cæsar and the Vargin Mary was born upon the one day?—answer me that, if you wouldn’t be hissed off the platform?”