"I beg your pardon," says his Riv'rence, "that's not the cork at all," says he; "I dhrew the cork a good two minits ago, and it's very purtily spitted on the end ov this blessed cork-shcrew at this prisint moment; howandiver you can't see it, because it's only its raal prisence that's in it. But that appearance that you call a cork," says he, "is nothing but the outward spacies and external qualities ov the cortical nathur. Them's nothing but the accidents ov the cork that you're looking at and handling; but, as I tould you afore, the real cork's dhrew, and is here prisint on the end ov this nate little insthrument, and it was the noise I made in dhrawing it, and nothing else, that you mistook for the sound ov the _pogue_." You know there was no conthravening what he said; and the Pope couldn't openly deny it. Howandiver he thried to pick a hole in it this way. "Granting," says he, "that there is the differ you say betuxt the reality ov the cork and them cortical accidents, and that it's quite possible, as you allidge, that the thrue cork is really prisint on the end ov the shcrew, while the accidents keep the mouth ov the bottle stopped--still," says he, "I can't undherstand, though willing to acquit you, how the dhrawing ov the real cork, that's onpalpable and widout accidents, could produce the accident ov that sinsible explosion I heard jist now." "All I can say," says his Riv'rence, "is, that I'm sinsible it was a raal accident, anyhow." "Ay," says the Pope, "The kiss you gev Eliza, you mane." "No," says his Riv'rence, "but the report I made." "I don't doubt you," says the Pope. "No cork could be dhrew with less noise," says his Riv'rence. "It would be hard for anything to be less nor nothing, barring algebra," says the Pope. "I can prove to the conthrary," says his Riv'rence. "This glass ov whisky is less nor that tumbler ov punch, and that tumbler ov punch is nothing to this jug of _scaltheen_." "Do you judge by superficial misure or by the liquid contents?" says the Pope. "Don't stop me betuxt my premisses and my conclusion," says his Riv'rence; "_Ergo_, this glass ov whisky is less nor nothing; and for that raison I see no harm in life in adding it to the contents ov the same jug, just by way ov a frost-nail." "Adding what's less nor nothing," says the Pope, "is subthraction according to algebra; so here goes to make the rule good," says he, filling his tumbler wid the blessed stuff, and sitting down again at the table, for the anger didn't stay two minutes on him, the good-hearted ould sowl. "Two minuses makes one plus," says his Riv'rence, as ready as you plase, "and that'll account for the increased daycrement I mane to take the liberty ov producing in the same mixed quantity," says he, follying his Holiness's epistolical example. "By all that's good," says the Pope, "that's the best stuff I ever tasted; you call it a mixed quantity, but I say it's prime."