"That's all very well, my friend, but can't you speak French?"
"Certainly, and very well, too, an it please you, my lord," answered the man. "By good luck, the French is at once my natural and maternal language. I was born in the garden of France,—fair Toulouse."
"Then you are a Frenchman! Let us know at once what is your name. If you satisfy me in this, you need never wander from my company, and we shall be one to the other, as Æneas and Achates."
"Sir," said the stranger, "my name in baptism was Panurge. I have just come home from Turkey, where I had the misfortune of being made a prisoner in the expedition against Metelin. I have ever so many good stories to tell Your Highness, more marvellous than those of Ulysses. As you are gracious enough to promise to keep me among your friends, I protest that I shall never leave you. I beg your pardon, my lord, I want one word more. I am desperately hungry, my teeth being very sharp, and my throat very dry. A dinner just now would be just as good as a balsam for sore eyes."
Pantagruel, on hearing these words from the stranger, was delighted. He at once ordered that a full meal should be got ready. This being set before him Panurge, who hadn't eaten for two whole days, stuffed himself and went to bed with the roosters, and never woke up until dinner-time next day, when he leaped from his bed, and, without so much as washing his face, reached the dining-room in three hops and one jump.
[CHAPTER XXVI.]
PANTAGRUEL BEATS THE SORBONNE IN ARGUMENT, AND PANURGE PROVES THAT AN ENGLISHMAN'S FINGERS ARE NOT SO NIMBLE AS A FRENCHMAN'S.
While Pantagruel was at Paris, he was receiving, every now and then, letters from his father, which were so kind, and so full of good advice to him to improve himself in the Languages, that he had not the heart to neglect them, even had he wished. One day, after laughing more than usual at one of Panurge's pranks,—and his new friend had turned out a queer fish indeed,—he thought it was right to see how much he had really learned. The very next day, therefore, at all the crossings of the city he posted, with his own hand, nine thousand seven hundred and sixty-four propositions, challenging all the wise men of Paris to argue with him, and show where, and in what, and how far, any of his propositions was wrong. At so bold a defiance, the wise men of Paris puckered their foreheads, opened wide their nostrils, breathed heavily, and ended by accepting the challenge. They thought that a Giant's strongest point was his body; but Pantagruel very soon proved to them that he was stronger than all of them, bunched together, in brains.