-- ay, says john wyse. we fought for the royal stuarts that reneged us against the williamites and they betrayed us. remember limerick and the broken treatystone. we gave our best blood to france and spain, the wild geese. fontenoy, eh? and sarsfield and o'donnell, duke of tetuan in spain, and ulysses browne of camus that was fieldmarshal to maria teresa. but what did we ever get for it?
-- the french! says the citizen. set of dancing masters! do you know what it is? they were never worth a roasted fart to ireland. aren't they trying to make an entente cordiale now at tay pay's dinnerparty with perfidious albion? firebrands of europe and they always were?
-- conspuez les fran?ais, says lenehan, nobbling his beer.
-- and as for the prooshians and the hanoverians, says joe, haven't we had enough of those sausageeating bastards on the throne from george the elector down to the german lad and the flatulent old bitch that's dead?
jesus, i had to laugh at the way he came out with that about the old one with the winkers on her blind drunk in her royal palace every night of god, old vic, with her jorum of mountain dew and her coachman carting her up body and bones to roll into bed and she pulling him by the whiskers and singing him old bits of songs about ehren on the rhine and come where the boose is cheaper.
-- well! says j. j. we have edward the peacemaker now.
-- tell that to a fool, says the citizen. there's a bloody sight more pox than pax about that boyo. edward guelph-wettin!
-- and what do you think, says joe, of the holy boys, the priests and bishops of ireland doing up his room in maynooth in his satanic majesty's racing colours and sticking up pictures of all the horses his jockeys rode. the earl of dublin, no less.