"What tongue do you speak?"
I answered that I was conversant with the English, the French, and the Latin.
"Your letters, pray," he asked in French, and I took them from my pocket and gave them to him.
"Ah," he cried, reading aloud, "you desire to study in this university, and improve your acquaintance with certain branches of letters and philosophy. So be it. My fee is five crowns for attendance at my lectures. I will not abate one tittle of it. I will have no more poor students come cringing and begging to be let off with two. So understand my terms, Master Burnette."
I was both angry and surprised. Who was this man to address me thus?
"I pray you to finish the letter," I said curtly.
He read on for a little while, then he lifted his head and looked at me with so comical an expression that I had almost laughed. Before, his face had been greedy and cold; now it was worse, for the greed was still there, but the coldness had vanished and left in its place a sickly look of servility.
"Pardon me, pardon me, good Master Burnette; I was in a great mistake. I had thought that you were some commoner from the North, and, God knows, we have plenty of them. I pray you forget my words. The college is most honoured by your presence, the nephew, or is it the son, of the famous Doctor Burnette. Ah, where were my eyes—the lord of much land, so says the letter, in the valley of the Tweed. Be sure, sir, that you can command all the poor learning that I have at my disposal. And if you have not already found lodging, why if you will come to my house, my wife and daughters will welcome you."
I thanked him coldly for his invitation, but refused it on the ground that I had already found an abode. Indeed, I had no wish to form the acquaintance of Vrow Sandvoort and her estimable daughters. He gave me much information about the hours of the lectures, the subjects which he proposed to treat of, and the method of treatment; nor would he let me depart before I had promised to dine at his house.
Outside the door I found the porter waiting for me. He led me across the hall to another door, the room of Master Quellinus, the professor of Greek.