“A hate at histhory?—­wid all my heart; but before we begin, I tell you that I’ll confound you precipitately; for you see, if you bate me in the English, I’ll scarify you wid Latin, and give you a bang or two of Greek into the bargain.  Och!  I wish you’d hear the sackin’ I gave Tom Reilly the other day; rubbed him down, as the masther says, wid a Greek towel, an’ whenever I complimented him with the loan of a cut on the head, I always gave him a plaster of Latin to heal it; but the sorra worse healin’ flesh in the world than Tom’s is for the Latin, so I bruised a few Greek roots and laid them to his caput so nate, that you’d laugh to see him.  Well is it histhory we are to begin wid?  If it is, come on—­advance.  I’m ready for you—­in protection—­wid my guards up.”

“Ha, ha, ha!  Well, if he isn’t the drollest crathur, an’ so cute!  But now for the histhory.  Can you prove to me, upon a clear foundation, the differ atween black an’ white, or prove that Phadrick Murray here, long life to him, is an ass?  Now, Phadrick, listen, for you must decide betune us.”

“Orra, have you no other larnin’ than that to argue upon?  Sure if you call upon me to decide, I must give it agin Dinny.  Why my judgment won’t be worth a hap’orth, if he makes an ass of me!”

“What matther how you decide, man alive, if he proves you to be one; sure that is all we want.  Never heed shakin’ your head—­listen an’ it will be well worth your while.  Why, man, you’ll know more nor you ever knew or suspected before, when he proves you to be an ass.”

“In the first place, fadher, you’re ungrammatical in one word; instead of sayin’ ‘prove,’ always say probate, or probe; the word is descended, that is, the ancisthor of it, is probo, a deep Greek word—­probo, probas, prob-ass, that is to say, I’m to probe Phadrick here to be an ass.  Now, do you see how pat I brought that in?  That’s the way, Phadrick, I chastise my fadher with the languages.”

“In throth it is; go an avick.  Phadrick!”

“I’m listenin’.”

“Phadrick, do you know the differ atween black an’ white’?”

“Atween black an’ white?  Hut, gorsoon, to be sure I do.”

“Well, an’ what might it be, Phadrick, my larned Athiop?  What might it be, I negotiate?”

“Why, thin, the differ atween them is this, Dinny, that black is—­let me see—­why—­that black is not red—­nor yallow—­nor brown—­nor green—­nor purple—­not cut-beard—­nor a heather color—­nor a grog-ram”—­

“Nor a white?”

“Surely, Dinny, not a white, abouchal; don’t think to come over me that way.”

“But I want to know what color it is, most larned sager.”

“All rasonable, Dinny, Why, thin, black is—­let me see—­hut, death alive!—­it’s—­a—­a—­why, it’s black, an’ that’s all I can say about it; yes, faix, I can—­black is the color of Father Curtis’s coat.”

“An’ what color is that, Phadrick?”

“Why, it’s black, to be sure.”