Now may I be shot with a blank cartridge, if I ever felt so much
at an amplush in my life, and I said so.
"'Your honor has hooked me wid the fishing hooks,' said I; 'but I grant
the cheese was good bait, any how.'
"So he laughed heartily, and bid me go on.
"Well, I thought the first was difficult: but the second was Masoretic
to it--something about drawbacks, excisemen, and a long custom-house
list, that would puzzle Publius Virgilius Maro, if he was set to
translate it. However, I went through wid it as well as I could; where I
couldn't find Latin, I laid in the Greek, and where the Greek failed
me, I gave the Irish, which, to tell the truth, in consequence of its
vernacularity, I found to be the most convanient. Och, och many a larned
scrimmage I have signalized myself in, during my time. Sure my name's
as common as a mail-coach in Thrinity College; and 'tis well known
there isn't a fellow in it but I could sack, except may be, the prowost.
That's their own opinion. 'Corcoran,' says the prowost, 'is the most
larned man in Ireland; an' I'm not ashamed,' says he, 'to acknowledge
that I'd rather decline meeting him upon deep points.' Ginteels, all
your healths--hem! But among ourselves I could bog him in a very short
time; though I'd scorn to deprive the gintleman of his reputaytion or
his place, even if he sent me a challenge of larnin' to-morrow, although
he's too cute to venture on doing that--hem, hem!"
To hear an obscure creature, whose name was but faintly known in the
remote parts even of the parish in which he lived, draw the long-bow
at such a rate, was highly amusing.
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