“Now, boys,” said one of the schoolmasters, “let us proceed to operations wid proper spirit,” and he filled a glass of whiskey as he spoke. “Here's all your healths, and next, pace and unanimity to us! Call in the culprits.”
Both were accordingly admitted, and the first speaker resumed—“Now, in the second place, I'll read yez that part of the oath which binds us all under the obligation of not strikin' one another—hem! hem! 'No brother is to strike another, knowing him to be such; he's to strike him—hem!—neither in fair nor market, at home nor abroad, neither in public nor in private, neither on Sunday nor week-day, present or absent, nor—'”
“I condimn that,” observed the other master—“I condimn it, as bein' too latitudinarian in principle, an' containing a para-dogma; besides it's bad grammar.”
“You're rather airly in the market wid your bad grammar,” replied the other: “I'll grant you the paradogma, but I'll stand up for the grammar of it, while I'm able to stand up for anything.”
“Faith, an' if you rise to stand up for that,” replied his friend, “and doesn't choose to sit down till you prove it to be good grammar, you'll be a standin' joke all your life.”
“I bleeve it's purty conspicuous in the parish, that I have often, in our disputations about grammar, left you widout a leg to stand upon at all,” replied the other.
This sally was well received, but his opponent was determined to push home the argument at once.
“I would be glad to know,” he inquired, “by what beautiful invintion a man could contrive to strike another in his absence? Have you good grammar for that?”
“And did you never hear of detraction?” replied his opponent; “that is, a man who's in the habit of spaking falsehoods of his friends whin their backs are turned—that is to say, whin they are absent. Now, sure, if a man's absent whin his back's turned, mayn't any man whose back's turned be said to be absent—ergo, to strike a man behind his back is to strike him whin he's absent. Does that confound you? where's your logic and grammar to meet proper ratiocination like what I'm displaying?”
“Faith,” replied the other, “you may have had logic and grammar, but I'll take my oath it was in your younger years, for both have been absent ever since I knew you: they turned their backs upon you, man alive; for they didn't like, you see, to be keepin' bad company—ha, ha, ha!”