Free The Hard Life by Flann O’Brien

my foot.
    –These were isolated cases.
    –They were not. The Order was some class of an East India Company. It was heavenly imperialism but with plenty of money in the bank.
    –Well, well. Speaking for myself I have nothing at all in the bank but I have my tramfare in my pocket, thank God.
    –And where do you get that tobacco you are smoking?
    –From the Society’s vast plantations in Panama. Father Fahrt said heavily. That suppression was a very serious blow and was the result of secret scheming by our agnostic enemies. Our missions in India, China and throughout Latin America collapsed. It was a victory for the Jansenists. It was a very sad episode.
    –Fair enough, Mr Collopy replied, but th’oul Jesuits weren’t bet yet. Trust them! They soon started their counter-scheming. Oh trust Wily Willie, S.J.!
    –It was their duty before God to try to salvage the Order. In Belgium some ex-Jesuits formed a new society named the ‘Fathers of the Faith’. Catherine of Russia would not allow that Brief to take effect, and the Jesuits tried to carry on in that country. After a time the two communities merged. You can take it, Collopy, that my Order was on the way back from then.
    –By damn but you are not telling me anything I don’t know. Mr Collopy said warmly. You couldn’t keep that crowd down. Too cute.
    –Is that what you think? Very good. This is a fresh drink. I am going to drink to the health, spiritual and physical, of my Society.
    –I’ll drink with you, Mr Collopy said, but with mental reservations.
    They had the toast between them in a preoccupied way.
    –And let us devoutly remember, Father Fahrt said after a long pause, the great Bull Sollicitudo Omnium Ecclesiarum, promulgated on August the 7th, 1814, by Pope Pius VII after he returned from France. You know what that meant, Collopy?
    –Well, I suppose your crowd got your way as usual.
    –That Bull restored the Society throughout the whole world. And we were welcomed back in the countries which before had driven us out. Ah, the ways of the Almighty are surely a mystery.
    –So are the ways of the Jesuits, Mr Collopy said. Did any money change hands? Or was he one of the Popes who made a fortune selling scapulars and indulgences?
    –Collopy, I think I have misjudged you. You are not serious. You are merely trying to annoy me. You don’t believe in what you say at all. As they say in Ireland, you are only trying to grig me. You ought to be ashamed of yourself. At the back of it all, you are a pious God-fearing man, may the Lord be good to you.
    –I never make jokes about religious matters, Mr Collopy said solemnly. If you want to praise me or compliment me, just give a thought to the important work I have been devoting my life to. The work that will not stop until this old heart stops.
    –Well, what we have been discussing is a sort of a headline for you. Cherish in your heart a recollection of the tenacity of the Jesuit Fathers. If your aim is praise-worthy, you will achieve it by undeviating faith in it and by never ceasing to invoke the blessing of God on it. Don’t you agree?
    –What else have I been doing for years? By the jappers, it’s a slow achievement I’m making of it. The divil himself is in the hearts of that Corporation ownshucks.
    –They are just thoughtless, misguided.
    –They are just a gang of ignorant, pot-bellied, sacrilegious, money-scooping robbers, very likely runners from the bogs, hop-off-my-thumbs from God-forsaken places like Carlow or the County Leitrim. The sons of pig-dealers and tinkers. In heaven’s name what would people the like of that know about the duties of a city councillor? I wouldn’t say they had a boot on their foot till they were eighteen.
    –But shouldn’t their clerks advise them? Surely they’re Dublin men?
    –That gurriers wouldn’t think of advising a man to take off his clothes before he took a bath. Are you fooling me, Father?
    –Indeed and I’m not.
    Heavy steps were heard on the