color,'--green, if you like, or orange, by dad,
for anything I care, for my case is proved. 'Black,' that is, 'white,'
lave out the 'that,' by sinnalayphy, and you have the orthodox
conclusion, 'Black is white,' or by convarsion, 'White is black.'"

"It's as clear as mud," says the Pope.

"Bedad," says his Riv'rence, "I'm in great humor for disputin' to-night.
I wisht your Holiness was a heretic jist for two minutes," says he,
"till you'd see the flaking I'd give you!"

"Well, then, for the fun o' the thing suppose me my namesake, if you
like," says the Pope, laughing, "though, by Jayminy," says he, "he's
not one that I take much pride out ov."

"Very good,--devil a bitther joke ever I had," says his Riv'rence.
"Come, then, Misther Pope," says he, "hould up that purty face ov yours,
and answer me this question. Which 'ud be the biggest lie, if I said I
seen a turkey-cock lying on the broad ov his back, and picking the stars
out ov the sky, or if I was to say that I seen a gandher in the same
intherrestin' posture, raycreating himself wid similar asthronomical
experiments? Answer me that, you ould swaddler?" says he.

"How durst you call me a swaddler, sir?" says the Pope, forgetting, the
dear man, the part that he was acting.

"Don't think to bully me!" says his Riv'rence. "I always daar to spake
the truth, and it's well known that you're nothing but a swaddling ould
sent ov a saint," says he, never letting on to persave that his Holiness
had forgot what they were agreed on.

"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.

"O, indeed! then things is come to a purty pass," says his Riv'rence,
(the dear funny soul that he ever was!) "when the lik ov 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