"Very well, Nancy; very well, that's enough--quite satisfactory--quod
erat demonstrandum. May all kinds of bad luck rest upon the Findramore
boys, any way! The unlucky vagabonds--I'm the third they've done up.
Nancy, off wid ye, like quicksilver for the priest."

"The priest! Why, Mat, jewel, what puts that into your head? Sure,
there's nothing wrong wid ye, only the sup o' drink you tuck yesterday."

"Go, woman," said Mat; "did you ever know me to make a wrong
calculation--I tell you I'm non compos mentis from head to heel. Head!
by my sowl, Nancy, it'll soon be a capui mortuum wid me--I'm far gone
in a disease they call an opthical delusion--the devil a thing less it
is--me bein' in my own place, an' to think I'm lyin' in a settle bed;
that there is a large dresser, covered wid pewter dishes and plates; and
to crown all, the door on the wrong side of the house! Off wid ye, and
tell his Reverence that I want to be anointed, and to die in pace and
charity wid all men. May the most especial kind of bad luck light down
upon you, Findramore, and all that's in you, both man and baste--you
have given me my gruel along wid the rest; but, thank God, you won't
hang me, any how! Off, Nancy, for the priest, till I die like a
Christhan, in pace and forgiveness wid the world;--all kinds of hard
fortune to them! Make haste, woman, if you expect me to die like a
Christhan. If they had let me alone till I'd publish to the world my
Treatise upon Conic Sections--but to be cut off on my march to fame!
another draught of the hydraulics, Nancy, an' then for the priest--But
see, bring Father Connell, the curate, for he understands something
about Matthew-maticks; an' never heed Father Roger, for divil a thing
he knows about them, not even the difference between a right line and a
curve--in the page of histhory, to his everlasting disgrace, be the same
recorded!"