“A modest youth, I see!” returned the clergyman; but Donal hardly liked the tone in which he said it.
“That depends on what you mean by a scholar,” he said.
“Oh!” answered the minister, not thinking much about his reply, but in a bantering humour willing to draw the lad out, “the learned man modestly calls himself a scholar.”
“Then there was no modesty in saying I was not so much of a scholar as I should like to be; every scholar would say the same.”
“A very good answer!” said the clergyman patronizingly. “You’ll be a learned man some day!” And he smiled as he said it.
“When would you call a man learned?” asked Donal.
“That is hard to determine, seeing those that claim to be contradict each other so.”
“What good then can there be in wanting to be learned?”
“You get the mental discipline of study.”
“It seems to me,” said Donal, “a pity to get a body’s discipline on what may be worthless. It’s just as good discipline to my teeth to dine on bread and cheese, as it would be to exercise them on sheep’s grass.”