"the figures ov spache is the
pillars ov the Church."

"Bedad," says his Riv'rence, "I dunna what we'd do widout them at all."

"Which one do you prefir?" says the Pope; "that is," says he, "which
figure of spache do you find most usefullest when you're hard set?"

"Metaphour's very good," says his Riv'rence, "and so's mettonymy,--and
I've known prosodypeia stand to me at a pinch mighty well,--but for a
constancy, superbaton's the figure for my money. Devil be in me," says
he, "but I'd prove black white as fast as a horse 'ud throt wid only a
good stick ov superbaton."

"Faix," says the Pope, wid a sly look, "you'd need to have it backed, I
judge, wid a small piece of assurance."

"Well now, jist for that word," says his Riv'rence, "I'll prove it
widout aither one or other. Black," says he, "is one thing and white is
another thing. You don't conthravene that? But everything is aither one
thing or another thing; I defy the Apostle Paul to get over that
dilemma. Well! If anything be one thing, well and good; but if it be
another thing, then it's plain it isn't both things, and so can't be two
things,--nobody can deny that. But what can't be two things must be one
thing,--_Ergo_, whether it's one thing or another thing it's all one.
But black is one thing and white is another thing,--_Ergo_, black and
white is all one. _Quod erat demonsthrandum._"

"Stop a bit," says the Pope, "I can't althegither give in to your second
miner--no--your second major," says he, and he stopped. "Faix, then,"
says he, getting confused, "I don't rightly remimber where it was
exactly that I thought I seen the flaw in your premises. Howsomdiver,"
says he, "I don't deny that it's a good conclusion, and one that 'ud be
ov materil service to the Church if it was dhrawn wid a little more
distinctiveness."

"I'll make it as plain as the nose on your Holiness's face, by
superbaton," says his Riv'rence. "My adversary says, black is not
another color, that is white? Now that's jist a parallel passidge wid
the one out ov Tartulion that me and Hayes smashed the heretics on in
Clarendon Sthreet. 'This is my body, that is, the figure ov my body.'
That's a superbaton, and we showed that it oughtn't to be read that way
at all but this way, 'This figure of my body _is_ my body.' Jist so wid
my adversary's proposition, it mustn't be undherstood the way it reads,
by no manner of manes; but it's to be taken this way,--'Black, that is,
white, is not another