ve rosy Mary, in her sense of smell, when she came upon her morning
business to clean and sweep, be any the wiser of them, because, as it
is known to the whole world, smoke ascends, and he was up among the
chimneys. Here, he would say to his friends and fellow-sinners, you can
unfold, unbosom, explode, do all you like, except caper, and there 's a
small square of lead between the tiles outside for that, if the spirit
of the jig comes upon you with violence, as I have had it on me, and
eased myself mightily there, to my own music; and the capital of the
British Empire below me. Here we take our indemnity for subjection to
the tyrannical female ear, and talk like copious rivers meandering at
their own sweet will. Here we roll like dogs in carrion, and no one to
sniff at our coats. Here we sing treason, here we flout reason, night is
out season at half-past ten.

This introductory ode to Freedom was his throwing off of steam, the
foretaste of what he contained. He rejoined his cousins, chirping
variations on it, and attired in a green silken suit of airy Ottoman
volume, full of incitement to the legs and arms to swing and set him up
for a Sultan. 'Now Phil, now Pat,' he cried, after tenderly pulling
the door to and making sure it was shut, 'any tale you've a mind
for--infamous and audacious! You're licensed by the gods up here, and
may laugh at them too, and their mothers and grandmothers, if the fit
seizes ye, and the heartier it is the greater the exemption. We're
pots that knock the lid and must pour out or boil over and destroy the
furniture. My praties are ready for peelin', if ever they were in this
world! Chuck wigs from sconces, and off with your buckram. Decency's a
dirty petticoat in the Garden of Innocence. Naked we stand, boys! we're
not afraid of nature. You're in the annexe of Erin, Pat, and devil a
constable at the keyhole; no rats; I'll say that for the Government,
though it's a despotism with an iron bridle on the tongue outside to a
foot of the door. Arctic to freeze the boldest bud of liberty! I'd
like a French chanson from ye, Pat, to put us in tune, with a right
revolutionary hurling chorus, that pitches Kings' heads into the basket
like autumn apples. Or one of your hymns in Gaelic sung ferociously to
sound as horrid to the Saxon, the wretch. His reign 's not for ever; he
can't enter here. You're in the stronghold defying him. And now cigars,
boys, pipes; there are the boxes, there are the bowls. I can