With our attention called so directly to the resemblance,—from the pitiable condition of the poor tit victims, who had been tortured into the vestibule of death, and were awaiting the ordeal of fire to recall from their bodies the vital spark,—we could not fail to admire the comprehensive quickness of our Coliseo cousins’ detective acumen for analyzing the relations and gradations of instinctive responsibility. Indeed, it would be impossible for you to imagine a more discordant or disgusting scene, or a baser use of language than these bloodthirsty humans used at every disjuncture effected by the combatants. That you may obtain an inkling of this pandemonic scene of instinctive madness, I will adventure a sketch.
Prominent among the representatives of foreign nations was a Scotch abbot of the abbey of Saint Maythedielscratch-me on the Tweed. In person and language he was tall and lank. Although engaged in “amusement” with an English prior, the incumbent of Goddamnmee on the Tyne, just over the border, they “staked” fearful invectives with their metallic coin. But the English canon was evidently no favorite, and required all the bluffness he had attained by a long course of dominant rule over a submissive brotherhood, as well as a full purse of tithes, for he was bantered with wagers on every side. But with bellowing disdain in the short and curt Durham dialect, he was ready with horned alternatives to oppose all comers. Chief among his secondary challengers, with coined words, was the abbe of Mortdieu, who mingled frothy gibes with his wager temptations. The ants were at length vanquished, to the great chagrin of the English abbot’s debtors, who tried all sorts of evasions to escape payment. Oncleslydenbet, the German prior of the priory of Shufflehausen, repudiated the payment of his forfeited wager in the concise terms, “Not a bit of it!” The Irish abbot of Fivewounds said, “To be sure I have bet and lost, but it was the understanding that I should never pay unless I won!” The Dutch incumbent of Dunderandblixen, the Welsh of Sweatmyleeks, and French paid theirs; the first with fearful imprecations and sputterings, the second with an abundant flow of perspiration, and the last with strings of sacres.