"Well, now, what color is white, Phadrick?"

"Why, it's a snow-color: for all the world the color of snow."

"White is?"

"Ay, is it."

"The dear help your head, Phadrick, if that's all you know about snow.
In England, man, snow is an Oxford gray, an' in Scotland, a pepper an'
salt, an' sometimes a cut-beard, when they get a hard winther. I found
that much in the Greek, any way, Phadrick. Thry agin, you imigrant, I'll
give you another chance--what color is white?"

"Why, thin, it's--white--an' nothin' else. The sorra one but you'd
puzzle a saint wid your long-headed screwtations from books."

"So, Phadrick, your preamble is, that white is white, an' black is
black?"

"Asy avick. I said, sure enough, that white is white; but the black I
deny--I said it was the color of Father Curtis's black coat."

"Oh, you barbarian of the world, how I scorn your profundity an'
emotions! You're a disgrace to the human sex by your superciliousness
of knowledge, an' your various quotations of ignorance. Ignorantia,
Phadrick, is your date an' superscription. Now, stretch out your ears,
till I probate, or probe to you the differ atween black an' white."