"'Neither more nor less,' you should have rejoyned," sayth the doctor.
"How I wish I had," says father; "don't torment me with a jest I might have made and did not make; 'speciallie to put downe Erasmus."
"Concedo nulli," sayth Erasmus.
"Why are you so lazy?" asks Linacre; "I am sure you can speak English if you will."
"Soe far from it," sayth Erasmus, "that I made my incapacitie an excuse for declining an English rectory. Albeit, you know how Wareham requited me; saying, in his kind, generous way, I served the Church more by my pen than I coulde by preaching sermons in a countrie village."
Sayth Linacre, "The archbishop hath made another remark, as much to ye purpose: to wit, that he has received from you the immortalitie which emperors and kings cannot bestow."
"They cannot even bid a smoking sirloin retain its heat an hour after it hath left the fire," sayth father. "Tilly-vally! as my good Alice says,—let us remember the universal doom, 'fruges consumere nati,' and philosophize over our ale and bracket."
"Not Cambridge ale, neither," sayth Erasmus.
"Will you never forget that unlucky beverage?" sayth father. "Why, man, think how manie poore scholars there be, that content themselves, as I have hearde one of St. John's declare, with a penny piece of beef amongst four, stewed into pottage with a little salt and oatmeal; and that after fasting from four o'clock in the morning! Say grace for us this daye, Erasmus, with goode heart."
At table, discourse flowed soe thicke and faste that I mighte aim in vayn to chronicle it—and why should I? dwelling as I doe at ye fountayn head? Onlie that I find pleasure, alreadie, in glancing over the foregoing pages whensoever they concern father and Erasmus, and wish they were more faithfullie recalled and better writ. One thing sticks by me,—a funny reply of father's to a man who owed him money and who put him off with "Memento Morieris." "I bid you," retorted father, "Memento Mori Æris, and I wish you woulde take as goode care to provide for ye one as I do for the other."