Alpha Book

"Gone at last, puir
fallow!--an' he sae little appreciated, too! Every gowk laying his ain
sins on Nickie's back, puir Nickie!--verra like that much misunderstood
politeecian, Mr. John Cade, as Charles Buller ca'd him in the Hoose o'
Commons--an' he to be dead at last! the warld'll seem quite unco without
his auld-farrant phizog on the streets. Aweel, aweel--aiblins he's but
shammin'.--
"When pleasant Spring came on apace,
And showers began to fa',
John Barleycorn got up again,
And sore surprised them a'.
"At ony rate, I'd no bury him till he began smell a wee strong like. It's a
grewsome thing, is premature interment, Alton, laddie!"


CHAPTER XXIII.
THE FREEDOM OF THE PRESS.

But all this while, my slavery to Mr. O'Flynn's party-spirit and coarseness
was becoming daily more and more intolerable--an explosion was inevitable;
and an explosion came.
Mr. O'Flynn found out that I had been staying at Cambridge, and at a
cathedral city too; and it was quite a godsend to him to find any one who
knew a word about the institutions at which he had been railing weekly for
years.


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