_Peabody._ Beg your pardon--_Belle Sauvage_. _Slowgoe._ I know that; but who’d stop for pronunciation when the Church is in danger? When, I say, I see ’em all with their drawn quills at such meetings, they do seem to me no better than ’sassins with daggers ready to stick at nothing but Protestant ’Scendancy. _Mrs Nutts._ My stars! and---- _Nutts._ Mrs Nutts, stars will do. _Mrs Nutts._ Well, I can’t speak without being taken up! I was only going to ask what was to be done against such creturs--going with drawn daggers among peaceable people? _Nosebag._ Why, nothing. (_Feeling his chin and rising._) A very clean shave, indeed; got a chin like white satin. Why, nothing can be done--nothing. _Slowgoe._ No; because we want a minister with wigour. But I’d stop it, I would. Yes; for I wouldn’t let a single reporter into any meeting ’somever that didn’t--as members of Parliament used to do when England was worth living in--that didn’t renounce the Pope and all his works; and Captain James Gordon, with two drawn swords at the door, should ’minister the oath. _Nosebag._ Well, I don’t know. I’m not a Papish myself--never shall be--but---- _Mrs Nutts._ Just as I said to Mrs Biggleswade over the way--“My dear,” says I, “they might tear me to bits with wild Arabian horses, and they wouldn’t get my religion out of me.” _Slowgoe._ Very proper, ma’am; I’m delighted to hear you. I will say this, you’re worthy of Smithfield in its best days. _Nosebag._ But I was going to say, this new Pope seems a fine old chap. Doing all sorts of good. I’ve heard that he’s set up a _Penny Roman Magazine_--and has, with his own hands, turned I don’t know how many sods for railways--and let perlitical people out of prison, and---- _Slowgoe._ Yes, yes; we know Rome before this. All a blind. People who know anything, know that very well. Why, there isn’t an Italian boy that sells images--and I suppose you’ve heard that Dr Pusey and Dr Newman are coming out in Roman cement, at sixpence a-head, for mantelpieces?--there isn’t, I say, an Italian image-boy as doesn’t expect to hear the Pope say High Mass in Westminster Abbey. _Mrs Nutts._ Not possible! _Slowgoe._ Mrs Nutts, though I honour you for what you’ve said about the Arab horses, nevertheless you don’t know Rome. Why, the Pope will come to England, just as Ibraham Parker did, to see--that’ll be the excuse--our works and manufactures. He’ll be asked to take a snack at Oxford, in course. And then when he’s seen all the sights--and p’r’aps given Madame Tussaud a sittin’ for her waxwork--he’ll just go off softly in a cab to Westminster Abbey, pay his money at the door, as if nothing was the matter, and then quietly walk in. Now I’m not an alarmist--I should be sorry if I was--but with the Pope once well inside Westminster Abbey, who do you think is to get him out agin? _Mrs Nutts._ To be sure. And for what I know, he’d turn us all into nuns; but I know what I’d do--I’d die first!