Stories of Comedy

GY AND

-God be good to poor Mat's sowl, though he did deny the cause the day he suffered! but its fluxions itself we're set to bottom now, sink or shwim! May I never die if my head isn't as throughother, as anything wid their ordinals and cardinals,-and, beg

curious to find out whether Father Tom was the great theologinall that people said; and says he "Mister Maguire," says he, "

asy about them; but if you want to know how I dispose ov them," says he, "just

re more numerous nor edifying,-so we'll jist suppose that a heretic was to find sich a saying as this in Austin, 'Every sensible man knows that th

we all know that nobody follying them seven deludhers could ever find out the mysthery that's in it, if somebody didn't come in to his assistance wid an eighth sinse, which is the only

says his Holiness; "and now what div y

d father that your Holiness has quoted, he'd have been a thrifle nearer the thruth, if he had

ays the Pope, getting

, the deludher was going to say, as the head of all uz, "that has the gift ov laving on hands. For sure," says he, "imposther and imposithir is all one, so you're only to undherstand manuum

Pope, "you've cleared up them two p

out providing himself wid a genteel assortment ov the best figures of rhetoric, sich as mettonymy, hyperbol, cattychraysis, prolipsis, mettylipsis, superbaton, pollysyndreton, hustheronprotheron, prosodypeia and the like, in ordher th

Pope; "the figures ov spache

ence, "I dunna what we'

at is," says he, "which figure of spache do y

me at a pinch mighty well,-but for a constancy, superbaton's the figure for my money. Devil be in me,"

, "you'd need to have it backed, I ju

other thing; I defy the Apostle Paul to get over that dilemma. Well! If anything be one thing, well and good; but if it be another thing, then it's plain it isn't both things, and so can't be two things,-nobody can deny th

he, getting confused, "I don't rightly remimber where it was exactly that I thought I seen the flaw in your premises. Howsomdiver," says he, "I

my body, that is, the figure ov my body.' That's a superbaton, and we showed that it oughtn't to be read that way at all but this way, 'This figure of my body is my body.' Jist so wid my adversary's proposition, it mustn't be undherstood the way it reads, by no manner of manes; but it's to be tak

ar as mud,"

' to-night. I wisht your Holiness was a heretic jist for two

e, if you like," says the Pope, laughing, "though, by Jaymi

uestion. 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

ir?" says the Pope, forgetting, the

d it's well known that you're nothing but a swaddling ould sent ov a saint," says he

ther 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

ree 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

very solemniously, "what is the manin

e acting a conthrawarsy, and you tuck the part ov the Prodesan champion. You wouldn'

ly taking your part as a good Milesian Catholic ought agin the heretic Sassenagh. Well," says he

estion, you santimonious oul

be the biggest lie, to my mind," says he; "the one

over his eyes? The one about as big a bounce as the other! O 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 s

eretic shoes too hot to hould me. I wundher

ome to the scratch like a man, if you are a man, and answer me my question. What's the rason, now, that Julius C

himself; and Father Tom communicated it to him in Latin. But as that is a very deep question, I never hard what the answer was, excep