Well, this man Hard got to know, among others, a certain good priest
that loved a good bottle of wine, a fine deep dish of_ poulet a la
casserole, _and a kind of egg done with cream in a little platter; and
eating such things, this priest said to him one day: 'Mr Hard, what
you want is to read some books on Catholicism.' And Hard, who was on
the point of being received into the Church as the final solution of
human difficulties, thought it would be a very good thing to instruct
his mind before baptism. So he gave the priest a note to a bookseller
whom an American friend had told him of; and this American friend had
said:
'You will find Mr Fingle (for such was the bookseller's name) a
hard-headed, honest, business man. He can say a _plain thing in a
plain way.'_
'Here,' said Mr Hard to the priest, 'is ten pounds. Send it to this
bookseller Fingle and he shall choose books on Catholicism to that
amount, and you shall receive them, and I will come and read them here
with you.'
So the priest sent the money, and in four days the books came, and Mr
Hard and the priest opened the package, and these were the books
inside:
_Auricular Confession:_ a History. By a Brand Saved from the Burning.
_Isabella; or, The Little Female Jesuit._ By 'Hephzibah'.
_Elisha MacNab:_ a Tale of the French Huguenots.
_England and Rome._ By the Rev. Ebenezer Catchpole of Emmanuel,
Birmingham.
_Nuns and Nunneries._ By 'Ruth', with a Preface by Miss Carran, lately
rescued from a Canadian Convent.
_History of the Inquisition._ By Llorente.
_The Beast with Seven Heads; or, the Apocalyptical Warning._
_No Truce with the Vatican._
_The True Cause of Irish Disaffection._
_Decline of the Latin Nations._
_Anglo-Saxons the Chosen Race,_ and their connexion with the Ten Lost
Tribes: with a map.
Finally, a very large book at the bottom of the case called _Giant
Pope._
And it was no use asking for the money back or protesting. Mr Fingle
was an honest, straightforward man, who said a plain thing in a plain
way. They had left him to choose a suitable collection of books on
Catholicism, and he had chosen the best he knew. And thus did Mr Hard
(who has recently given a hideous font to the new Catholic church at
Bismarckville) learn the importance of estimating what words connote.
LECTOR. But all that does not excuse an intolerable prolixity?
AUCTOR. Neither did I say it did, dear Lector. My object was merely to
get you to San Lorenzo where I bought that wine, and where, going out
of the gate on the south, I saw suddenly the wide lake of Bolsena all
below.
