200 BREAKING COVER. 



hatter resolved on changing his religion, pro tempore, and actually 

 read his public recantation, during morning service, in Mallow 

 church. There, as fate would have it, Mr. Doolittle chanced to be 

 present ; and great was his astonishment and consternation, at the 

 unexpected, unhoped-for conversion of his mortal foe to the true 

 faith! Had it taken place in St. Stephen's Chapel, he would, doubt- 

 less, have deprecated, in parliamentary language, the " indecent 

 haste," &c. with which Flynn had deserted his party. Howbeit, the 

 tailor saw and acknowledged the necessity of taking immediate mea- 

 sures to avoid bloodshed. He made a precipitate retreat from the 

 church, and took sanctuary in the Roman Catholic chapel, which 

 stands in the same street. There having openly professed himself an 

 unworthy member of the church of Rome, he was cordially received, 

 and initiated by baptism, and other usual ceremonies. 



Mr. Doolittle, however, had scarcely time to congratulate himself 

 on his escape from the dreaded duello, when he was disagreeably un- 

 deceived by a practical illustration of the proverb, " one good turn 

 deserves another." The courageous hatter felt indignant at what he 

 could not but consider a paltry subterfuge ; and was not to be put 

 off (like an old beaver) so easily. He therefore took an early oppor- 

 tunity of seeking a conference with his quondam priest and father- 

 confessor, who found him a willing convert. A slight nominal 

 penance sufficed to reconcile him to the placable church which he 

 had deserted ; certainly through interested, but by nomeans through 

 mercenary motives. He lamented his backsliding in due form ; and 

 renounced the damnable heresies to which, in an unguarded moment, 

 he had subscribed ; all this once more in the presence of the alarmed 

 tailor, who now began to be convinced, that no points of doctrine, 

 however tough and knotty, had strength to bind over his Protean 

 antagonist to the peace. Nothing, he could clearly see, was left him, 

 in this emergency, but to break cover again, and seek refuge in the 

 bosom of his mother church ; and this he effected with all imaginable 

 speed ; sending, at the same time, a notification to the angry hatter, 

 that their opinions on religious matters were so diametrically and 

 irreconcileably opposite, that his conscience would not permit him, 

 Doolittle, to retain any faith whatever, that might at any time be 

 embraced by so blood-thirsty and unchristian an adversary as Flynn. 



We are assured that the foregoing anecdote, improbable as it may 

 appear, is an absolute fact, well known as such by most of the inha- 

 bitants of Mallow ; and that every circumstance, even to the names 

 of the polemical warriors, is accurately detailed. 



