You shouldn't nail him anyhow. Insolence I call it; and I'd have pulled
his nose for him many times only he wasn't worth it. Starving I've
known him: yet if you'll believe me he'd give himsel' a wash and a
brush up and go out of an afternoon looking as smart as you please in
his old clothes and with a fag always in his mouth like the masher he
is. That fag! I'll let ye know it was aye the same fag. He hadna used
to light it ever. He lit it once and put it out directly after; and
then he used to stick it in his face every afternoon and shew himself
as usual, so that no one should know he hadna had a bit fhite fish,
na naething to ca' a moothfu' o' flesher's meat wi' his piece the
week past. He felled it me himsel' when I got to know him. And now,
comrades, there's that feller sitting on the seven hills of Rome with
three gold crowns on his head, as has been put in the papers, damning
us for all he's worth. Comrades, fhat I wish to call the attention of
this meeting to this evening is--I'll just speir if ye think that Rose
should like to have his past life gave away by me and my lady-friend?
Mrs. Crowe, her name is."
Jerry paused for a reply; and realized that he had possession of the
meeting's ear: He mopped the lumps on his forehead: helped himself
out of the chairman's whiskey-bottle: gulped a dram; and continued.
His assumption of the rhetorical manner was consciously enormous now.
"Comrades, as in the east when the golden light of dawn shews that
sunrise is about to come, so this poor feeble voice of mine shews that
the tyrant's thrones are tottering to their overthrow. But, comrades,
we maun beware. Snares beset our path. Once we have let oursel's be
caught by his infernal Jesuitical machinations and he has scornfully
crrrushed us to the earth. This is how Labor is treated, and thus shall
Labor be treated as long as we go cap in hand and ask for our rights
instead of demanding them and taking them as Comrade Matchwood says
in the _Salpinx_. Comrades, this time we maun conquer or expire. If
we want the former, we must fight our enemy with his own tools. Fhat
are his tools? Comrades, his tools are Jesuitical Tory tools. His
emissaries are everywhere, his spies beset our path on every hand I
should say infest our road. Even in this hall to-night, a Tory eye may
be upon us, a Jesuitical ear may be protruded to catch these whispers
falling from this feeble tongue and pass them on to that arch-pariah
in Rome who is drunk with the blood of working-men and battened on
unearned increment. Comrades, we maun take a leaf out of his book:
we maun hoist him up on his own Jesuitical petard. We oursels maun
become Jesuitical for the sake of the Cause. Comrades, there in Rome
sits the Abominable Desolation and I'll let ye know ye'll find him
fhat ye may call a fikey customer. Day by day his satellites prostrate
their forms before his so-called holy toe, and let him know a' things
which they've found out by base and underhand sneaking means. That is
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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