thou dost so frequently aid the inspiration of the bard, the eloquence of the orator, and changest the modesty of the diffident lover into that easy and becoming assurance which is so grateful to women, is it any wonder I should feel how utterly incapable I am, without thy own assistance, to expound thy eulogium as I ought!  Hand that tumbler here, Charley,—­bad as it is, there is no use, as the proverb says, in laving one’s liquor behind them.  We will presently correct it with better drink.”

Charley Corbet, for such was the name of the worthy schoolmaster’s nephew, laughed heartily at the eloquence of his uncle, who, he could perceive, had been tampering a little with something stronger than water in the course of the evening.

“What can keep this boy.” exclaimed Ginty; “he knew we were waiting for him, and he ought to be here now.”

“The youth will come,” said the schoolmaster, “and a hospitable youth he is—­me ipso teste, as I myself can bear witness.  I was in his apartments in the Collegium Sanctae Trinitatis, as they say, which means the blessed union of dulness, laziness, and wealth, for which the same divine establishment has gained an appropriate and just celebrity—­I say I was in his apartments, where I found himself and a few of his brother students engaged in the agreeable relaxation of taking a hair of the same dog that bit them, after a liberal compotation on the preceding night.  Third place, as a scholar!  Well! who may he thank for that, I interrogate.  Not one Denis O’Donegan!—­O no; the said Denis is an ignoramus, and knows nothing of the classics.  Well, be it so.  All I say is, that I wish I had one classical lick at their provost, I would let him know what the master of a plantation seminary (*—­a periphrasis for hedge-school) could do when brought to the larned scratch?”

“How does Tom look, uncle.” asked Corbet; “we can’t say that he has shown much affection for his friends since he went to college.”

“How could you expect it, Charley, my worthy nepos.” said the schoolmaster—­“These sprigs of classicality, when once they get under the wing of the collegium aforesaid, which, like a comfortable, well-feathered old bird of the stubble, warms them into what is ten times better than celebrity—­videlicet, snug and independent dulness—­these sprigs, I say, especially, when their parents or instructors happen to be poor, fight shy of the frieze and caubeen at home, and avoid the risk of resuscitating old associations.  Tom, Charley looks—­at least he did when I saw him to-day—­very like a lad who is more studious of the bottle than the book; but I will not prejudge the youth, for I remember what he was while under my tuition.  If he be as cunning now and assiduous in the prosecution of letters as I found him—­if he be as cunning, as ripe at fiction, and of as unembarrassed brow as he was in his schoolboy career, he will either hang, on the one side, or rise to become lord chancellor or a bishop on the other.”