I'll take the old ruffian's place, and
play with ye till evening, and all night besides, and divil an
advantage will I take of the dirty marks, though I know them all,
having placed them on the cards myself.' I was going on in this
way when the ould thaif of a rector, flinging down the cards, made
at me as if to kick me out of the room, whereupon I started up and
said, 'If ye are for kicking, sure two can play at that;' and then
I kicked at his reverence, and his reverence at me, and there was a
regular scrimmage between us, which frightened the Pope, who,
getting up, said some words which I did not understand, but which
the cook afterwards told me were, 'English extravagance, and this
is the second edition;' for it seems that, a little time before,
his Holiness had been frightened in St. Peter's Church by the
servant of an English family, which those thaives of the English
religious house had been endeavouring to bring over to the Catholic
faith, and who didn't approve of their being converted. Och! his
Holiness did us all sore injustice to call us English, and to
confound our house with the other; for however dirty our house
might be, our house was a clane house compared with the English
house, and we honest people compared with those English thaives.
Well, his Holiness was frighted, and the almoner ran out, and
brought in his Holiness's attendants, and they laid hold of me, but
I struggled hard, and said, 'I will not go without my pack; arrah,
your Holiness! make them give me my pack, which Shorsha gave me in
Dungarvon times of old;' but my struggles were of no use.
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