'Hail! man of courts and camps,' I cried him back, 'whither away so fast?'
'No whither, lad,' said he, 'since you are come, and whither I was going I will not tell you, till I hear first where your life-blood has gone. 'Slight, man, you look as pale and dry as a love-lorn stock-fish. What ails you?'
'Nought but a piece of an ague,' said I, feeling the sight of him like medicine to me, 'and perhaps a surfeit of weary wits.'
'Well, save us from universities, then,' answered he. 'Courts and camps have their dangers, they say, but, 'fore heaven, I think your college is a very Castle Perilous beside them!'
'How will you make that good, most sapient brother?'
'Nay, the maxim is good already, without my making. For, look you, in camp a man shall lose at most his life, and at Court his heart; but your college puts his spirits in danger, and to be spiritless is worse a thousand times than to be dead or even in love.'
'Well, I think you may be right, and in any case have enough spirits to share with me.'
'Nay, if you want spirits, come with me whither I was going, and I will show you a man who has enough to set a whole graveyard singing.'
'Why, 'tis a very resurrection of spirits. Come, tell me who is your miracle man?'
'Who is he? Why, who should he be but that man of men, that prince of good companions, Frank Drake?'