"How, Prince?" asked Ponocrates, softly, coming out of his corner.
"How, good Master? Why, by beginning our games over again."
"Not so fast; not so fast, Prince. To-morrow Your Highness will begin with Me!"
[CHAPTER XII.]
GARGANTUA IS DOSED BY PONOCRATES, AND FORGETS ALL THAT HOLOFERNES HAD TAUGHT HIM.
While the two hundred and fifteen games, taking up just that number of days, were being played, Master Ponocrates had not been at all idle. He had already consulted with Master Theodore—a wise physician of that time—and knew just what he was going to do when he had said:—
"To-morrow Your Highness will begin with Me."
The first thing was to dose Gargantua with a mysterious herb, which made him forget all that he had ever learned under his old teacher. This was not an original idea at all with either Theodore or Ponocrates, for Thimotes, the music-master of Miletus, had long before dosed, in the same way, such disciples of his as had been unlucky enough to have first learned their notes under other musicians. Gargantua, when asked by Ponocrates to meet certain scientific gentlemen of Paris who had been specially invited to inspire the royal Giant with love of knowledge, was so weak and pale after his dose that he could only bow his head, while wondering lazily to himself what all these heavy talks about Science had to do with the Latin, which his good old Father Grandgousier had been so anxious for him to learn.