Father Tom and the Pope : $b Or, a night in the VaticanFerguson, Samuel
Religion
Father Tom and the Pope : $b Or, a night in the Vatican
Ferguson, Samuel
Catholic Church -- Fiction; Christian fiction; Clergy -- Fiction; Popes -- Fiction
"Why, then, you poor simpleton," says his Riv'rence, "don't you
persave that, forbye the advantage the gandher 'ud have in the length
ov his neck, it 'ud be next to onpossible for the turkey-cock lying
thataway to see what he was about, by rason ov his djollars and other
accouthrements hanging back over his eyes? The one about as big a
bounce as the other! Oh, you misforthunate 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 sowl that ud be
in it. Ay, and if it wasn't that the Church is too liberal entirely, so
she is, it 'ud cost his heirs and succissors betther nor ten pounds to
have him out as soon as the other. Get along, man, and take half-a-year
at dogmatical theology: go and read your Dens, you poor dunce, you!"
"Raaly," says the Pope, "you're making the heretic's shoes too hot to
hould me. I wondher how the Prodesans can stand afore you at all."
"Don't think to delude me," says his Riv'rence, "don't think to back
out ov your challenge now," says he, "but come to the scratch like a
man, if you are a man, and answer me my question. What's the rason,
now, that Julius Cæsar and the Vargin Mary was born upon the one
day?--answer me that, if you wouldn't be hissed off the platform!"
Well, my dear, the Pope couldn't answer it, and he had to acknowledge
himself sacked. Then he axed his Riv'rence to tell him the rason
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, except that I'm
tould it was so mysterious, it made the Pope's hair stand on end.
But there's two o'clock, and I'll be late for the lecthir.
CHAPTER III.
HOW FATHER TOM MADE A HARE OF HIS HOLINESS IN LATIN.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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