Punch (44.1863)

“ TJEALLY, Me. Punch ”—said Father Nile.

“And really, Father Nile,” said Mb. Punch, “and now what’s the matter with you, you old Myth and
Mystery. Light another pipe, and be sociable. Are you smoking tomboc ? If so, give it an extra wash and
squeeze in your own river; for it’s strong, and makes you surly, and we won’t have Surley Hall on the Nile.”

“ You make me laugh,” said Fatheb Nile, “ but you are uncommonly familiar.”

“ Familiar, but by no means vulgar,” returned Me. Punch, lighting his cigar with a dry reed. “ Nobody

can say I’m vulgar. I have all the exquisite ease of society that is too high to care what anybody thinks. And so we

know all about you at last. Do you know that you remind me of a sensation novel; when the secret’s out there’s
nothing in it?”

“ Come, I won’t be talked to like that,” said the Nile. “Iam a most respectable old river, and if I am not

what I was, that is not my fault. Six hundred and thirty years before your era, there was a Milesian factory upon

my Bolbitic branch.”

“ Bother your Bolbitic branch,” said Me. Punch. “ Do you consider it a credit to have been patronised by
the Irish of the Future ? ”

“ I drowned Cleopatba’s first husband in Forty-Seven.”

“ If you had submerged the entire menage, the world would have lost a bad woman and a good play.”

“ Then Probus, who conquered Floeian—”

“ I never could do that, but then I hate all French books, except Rabelais.”

“ He improved my navigation—”

In otio et negotio Probus, just like me,” said Me. Punch.

“Didn’t I defeat the Fifth Crusade, by an overwhelming majority?” said Father Nile, indignantly.

“ Who’s a denying on it P ” responded Mr. Punch. “ What an edgey old man you are—there’s no talking
to you. Don’t I hold you in all reverence ? Honor est a Nilo—do you remember that, your honour P ”

The placable old creature recovered his equanimity, and said, smiling, “ At my time of life we are, perhaps, too
apt to believe that we are not treated with due respect.”

“ Certainly, there’s no fool like an old fool,” answered the incorrigible Mb. Punch. “But I tell you I have
the utmost veneration for you. Don’t I remember what Juvenal, whom I strongly resemble in all his few good qualities,
said about your mouths—rari guippe boni—and the gates of Thebes ? ”