"'Can you translate a newspaper into Latin prose?' said he.

"Now the divil a one o' me was just then sure about the prose, so I was
goin' to tell him; but before I had time to speak, he thrust the paper
into my hand, and desired me to thranslate half-a-dozen barbarous
advertisements.

"The first that met me was about a reward offered for a Newfoundland dog
and a terrier, that had been stolen from a fishing-tackle manufacturer,
and then came a list of his shabby merchandise, ending with a
long-winded encomium upon his gunpowder, shot, and double-barrelled
guns. Now may I be shot with a blank cartridge, if I ever felt so much
at an amplush in my life, and I said so.

"'Your honor has hooked me wid the fishing hooks,' said I; 'but I grant
the cheese was good bait, any how.'

"So he laughed heartily, and bid me go on.

"Well, I thought the first was difficult: but the second was Masoretic
to it--something about drawbacks, excisemen, and a long custom-house
list, that would puzzle Publius Virgilius Maro, if he was set to
translate it. However, I went through wid it as well as I could; where I
couldn't find Latin, I laid in the Greek, and where the Greek failed
me, I gave the Irish, which, to tell the truth, in consequence of its
vernacularity, I found to be the most convanient. Och, och many a larned
scrimmage I have signalized myself in, during my time. Sure my name's
as common as a mail-coach in Thrinity College; and 'tis well known
there isn't a fellow in it but I could sack, except may be, the prowost.