"My name is Martha, sir."
"Well, Miss Martha, I shall dance with you most delightedly. Asinus is my name—I am descended from a great Assyrian family; and this is my lodging. Looking up any morning, my dear Miss Martha, you will receive the most elegant bow I have—such as is due to a Fairy Queen, and the empress of my soul.—Good morning, Mowbray."
And saluting the students who passed, laughing, Sir Asinus ascended again, muttering and wrapping his old dressing-gown more tightly around him.
"Yes," he said, "there's no doubt about the fact in my own mind;—I am just as much in love with that pretty young girl who has left me laughing and joyous, as that ridiculous Jacques is with his beauty at Shadynook. I thought at one time I was in love with Belle-bouche myself, but I was mistaken. I certainly was convinced of it, however, or why did I name my sail-boat the 'Rebecca'—that being the actual name of Miss Belle-bouche? Yet I was not in love with that young lady—and am in love with this little creature of fifteen and a half, who has passed me every morning and evening, going to school. Going to school! there it is! I, the great political thinker, the originator of ideas, the student, the philosopher, the cynic—I am in love with a school-girl! Well, I am not aware that the fact of acquiring a knowledge of geography and numbers, music, and other things, has the effect of making young ladies disagreeable. Therefore I uphold the doctrine that love for young ladies who attend school is not wholly ridiculous—else how could those who go on studying until they are as old as the surrounding hills, be ever loved with reason? I am therefore determined to fall deeper still in love, and write more verses, and abolish that old dull scoundrel Coke, and become a sighing, languishing, poetic Lovelace. I'll go and dance, and feel my pulse every hour, and look at the weather-glass of my affections, and at night, or rather in the morning, report to myself the result. What a lucky lover I am! I will write a sonnet to that thread, and an ode to the hook;—I will expand the affair into an epic!"
With which gigantic idea Sir Asinus kicked aside a volume of Coke which obstructed his way, seized a pen, and frowning dreadfully, began to compose.[(Back to Table of Content.)]
CHAPTER XXIV.
HOFFLAND IS WHISKED AWAY IN A CHARIOT.
"What an oddity!" said Hoffland, as leaving the domain of Sir Asinus behind them, the two students passed on, still laughing at the grotesque appearance of the knight; "this gentleman seems to live in an atmosphere of jests and humor."
"I think it is somewhat forced."
"Somewhat forced?"