(U84 1512-1577)
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Cusack read on:

— A distinguished gathering assembled in Manchester yesterday to do honour to a ruler of Africa, the Alaki of Abeakuta. A delegation consisting of the chief magnates of the district was presented to his majesty by Gold Stick in Waiting, lord Walkup of Walkup on Eggsº and tendered to his majesty their heartfelt thanks for the facilities afforded to British traders in his majesty's dominions. The dusky potentate in the course of a gracious speech (translated by the British chaplain from Alakamekhapth, the reverend Ananias Praisegod Barebones) tendered his thanks to massa Walkup and emphasised the cordial relations existing between his people and the British empire, stating that he treasured as one of his dearest possessions an illuminated bible presented to him by the great squaw, Victoria. Amid general applause the Alaki then drank a loving cup to the toast of ‘The King, God bless him’ from the skull of his immediate predecessor in the dynasty, Kakachakachak, nicknamed Forty Warts. ^|1|+anº outstanding feature of^+|1| The ceremony was ^|+1brought to a close by^+|1| a musical setting of the versicle I am black but comely excellently rendered by the royal musicians upon their curious native instruments, alligator carapaces strung with the elongated guts of vanquished Zulu warriors and the perforated thighbones of early christian missionaries, the effect of these latter being remarkably similar to the dulcet ^|1|+melancholy^+|1| tones of the Italian ocarina.

— O, trust a widow woman, says Ned. Wonder did he put that bible to the same use as I would.

— The same only more so, says Lenehan, and thereafter in that fruitful land the broadleaved mango flourished exceedingly.

— Is that by Griffith? says —. It's like what that chap writes under the name of Heblon.

— I don't know, says Cusack. It's only initialled P.

— And a bloody good initial too, says Lenehan.

— No, says O'Madden Burke, Griffith's stuff is signed Shanganagh

— Is it you is going to write that pantomime about Finn MacCool or Brian Boru, isn't it? says —

— What about it? says O'Madden Burke. Haven't we had enough of those English importations with flash musichall songs and flash girls in tights.

— I heard it was Bloom gave Griffith the hard word about that Hungarian lay he's on.

— Using the county councils, is it? And chucking sending over the members on the floor of the house?

— Leaders of the Irish people at home and abroad, says —.

— Well and doesn't it stand to reason? says O'Madden Burke. If Peter the Packer can pack a jury for the crown why can't we pack the civil service and the police and the constabulary and swindle them over the taxes and boycott the post too.

— And how would you send letters? says —

— By private post, says O'Madden Burke. And then they can't spy on your correspondence

— And aren't they talking of sending Irish consuls to the continent to open up trade? says —

— What about the ^|+1kudos wherewithal^+|1|? says Lenehan.
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— There are Irish American millionaires behind it, says — {!U84 1365-1408}

Then did you speak, noble Cusack, lifting up your voice; and all men harkened:

— They were driven out of house and home in the black '47. Their mudcabins by the roadside were laid low by the battering rams of the Sassenach. They departed with tears and wailing to build up a greater Ireland beyond the grave And the Times rubbed its hands and told the whitelivered English public that there would soon be as few Irish in Ireland as redskins in India and suggested to ship off the few of us that still lived, praying for death, to the banks of the Hydaspe and the Brahmaputra. Twenty 0 20,000º of the poor wretches died in the coffinships when the land was full of ^|+1harvest crops^+|1| and the nation of shopkeepers, as Napoleon called them, selling the ^|+1crops harvest^+|1| of our peasants in Rio de Janeiro, and hoarding it up till it rotted on their hands. ^|1|+Why, even the Turks sent us their piastres then. The whole world did.^+|1| But, if they went, they built up a greater Ireland beyond the waves. And they will come again: and with a vengeance: the sons of Granuaile.

— We're a long time waiting for that day, says — One time it was the French have landed at Killala. Then the Yankees. Now it's the Germans or the Japanese.

— Ay, and look at all the generals and soldiers we sent to France and Spain, says ^|+1— O'Madden Burke^+|1| and Austria too, when the Cromwellians drove them out, the wild geese. Fontenoy, eh? And Sarsfield. And O'Donnell, duke of Tetuan in Spain and Ulysses Browne of Camus and Mountany that was fieldmarshal to Maria Teresa, no less, and not forgetting Marshal MacMahon, J'y suis, J'y reste. And what did we ever get for le it?

— The French! says Ned. Set of dancing masters! Do you know what it is! They were never worth a roasted fart to Ireland. And now aren't they going to make what they call an entente cordiale with perfidious Albion against the Germans. ^|1|+Firebrands of Europe they always were.^+|1|

— Conspuez les anglais, says Lenehan.

He knows a bit of the lingo he picks up in the smutty papers he reads

— And as for the Germans! says Ned. Haven't we had enough of those sausageeating bastards ^|1|+on the throne^+|1| from George the Elector down to the flatulent old bitch that's dead.

— And Edward the peacemaker, says Lenehan

— Arrah, tell that to a fool, says Ned. There's a bloody sight more pox than pax about him if you ask me.

— And when he was over here last year, says O'Madden Burke, what about the ^|1|+holy boys, the^+|1| priests and bishops that killed our rightful king, Chas. Stew. Parnell, doing up his room in Maynooth in his racing colours and sticking up round the wall all the horses his jockeys rode.

— They ought to have stuck up all the married women he rode himself, says Ned.

And says J.J.

— Considerations of space doubtless influenced their lordships' decision.

— Talking about kings, says Hynes, the MacDermot that died is the real king of Ireland. Hugh Hyacinth, the MacDermott, prince of Coolavin.

— No, No, says O'Madden Burke. You're
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wrong there, Joe. It's the O'Conor Don. He's the descendant of Roderick O'Conor, the last king of all Ireland.

— We want no king nor crown nor mitre either, shouts Cusack. ^|1|+The Royal Stuarts were no better.^+|1| Strangle the last king in the windpipe of the last priest. We want no French or Germans. We want ourselves. Sinn Fein! Sinn Fein amháin!

— I tell you what it is, says O'Madden Burke, there's a war coming on for the Sassanachs and the Germans will give them a hell of a gate of going. What the imperial yeomanry got from the boers is only what you might call a hors d'œuvre.

— But aren't you after saying …? says Ned

— I know what I'm after saying, says O'Madden Burke. But, win or lose, they'll have to stand up to their match this time not naked Zulus to mow them down with ^|+1machineguns their dumdum bullets^+|1| and Ashantimen with ^|+1toothpicks puttyknives^+|1| in their hands. Not likely! They'll be up against a conundrum, I tell you, ^|1|+that'll put the kibbosh on them,^+|1| a fellow that'll kill his man for every man they kill. Wait till you see.

Thus did they laud the prowess of those farfamed races, the lordly Gauls (or Gaiculs, as some do name them), sons of the Gamecock, nimble of foot, a noble nation descended from the gods who dwell in the land of Oui-Oui, and the lordly Teutons (from Teuton or Chewaton are they yclept) brood of the Stork, feasters at the board, a noble race of the seed of the immortals, whose dwelling is in the land of Ja-Ja.