my eyes and ears?" says he.

"Indeed I would so," says his Riv'rence, "if they pretend to have
informed your Holiness ov any sich foolishness."

"Why," says the Pope, "I've seen you afther kissing Eliza as plain as I
see the nose on your face; I heard the smack you gave her as plain as
ever I heard thundher."

"And how do you know whether you see the nose on my face or not?" says
his Riv'rence, "and how do you know whether what you thought was
thundher, was thundher at all? Them operations on the sinses," says he,
"comprises only particular corporal emotions, connected wid sartain
confused perciptions called sinsations, and isn't to be depended upon at
all. If we were to follow them blind guides we might jist as well turn
heretics at onc't. 'Pon my secret word, your Holiness, it's neither
charitable nor orthodox ov you to set up the testimony ov your eyes and
ears agin the characther ov a clergyman. And now, see how aisy it is to
explain all them phwenomena that perplexed you. I ris and went over
beside the young woman because the skillet was boiling over, to help
her to save the dhrop ov liquor that was in it; and as for the noise you
heard, my dear man, it was neither more nor less nor myself dhrawing the
cork out ov this blissid bottle."

"Don't offer to thrape that upon me!" says the Pope; "here's the cork in
the bottle still, as tight as a wedge."

"I beg your pardon," says his Riv'rence, "that's not the cork at all,"
says he; "I dhrew the cork a good two minits ago, and it's very purtily
spitted on the end ov this blessed corkshcrew at this prisint moment;
howandiver you can't see it, because it's only its real prisince that's
in it. But that appearance that you call a cork," says he, "is nothing
but the outward spacies and external qualities of the cortical nathur.
Them's nothing but the accidents of the cork that you're looking at and
handling; but, as I tould you afore, the real cork's dhrew and is here
prisint on the end ov this nate little insthrument, and it was the noise
I made in dhrawing it, and nothing else, that you mistook for the sound
ov the _pogue_."

You know there was no conthravening what he said; and the Pope couldn't
openly deny it. Howandiver he thried to pick a hole in it this way.
"Granting," says he, "that there is the differ you say betwixt the
reality ov the cork and these cortical accidents; and that it's quite
possible, as you allidge, that the thrue cork is really prisint on the