Nille.  Oh, my dear husband, can you stand hearing him use such language?

Jeppe.  Jacob, you will get into trouble if you talk like that any more.

Jacob.  Little father ought rather to thank me, for I set him to rights and took him out of the stable toward the house.  Just think what might happen to such a lad if he should go on a long journey alone; for I’m sure that if I had not been with him, he would have been standing in the stable yet, gazing at the cows’ tails, from sheer learning.

Jeppe.  A plague on your impudent mouth!

[Jacob runs off, Jeppe after him.

Nille.  The confounded rogue!—­I have sent word to the bailiff and the deacon, so that my son can have some one to dispute with when he comes back.

ACT III

SCENE 1

Same as Act II.

Nille (alone).  My son Montanus is gone a long time.  I wish he would come home before the bailiff goes, for he wants very much to talk with him, and is eager to ask him about several things which—­But there, I see him coming.

SCENE 2

Enter Montanus.

Nille.  Welcome home, my dear son.  Our kind friend Jeronimus was no doubt very glad to see our honored son in good health after so long an absence.

Montanus.  I have spoken neither to Jeronimus nor to his daughter, on account of that fellow with whom I got into a dispute.

Nille.  What kind of a man was he?  Perhaps it was the schoolmaster.

Montanus.  No, it was a stranger, who is going away to-day.  I know him, although I have not associated with him in Copenhagen.  I am annoyed almost to death by these people who imagine they have absorbed all wisdom, and still are idiots.  I’ll tell you, mother, how it is:  This fellow has been ordinarius opponens once or twice; therein lies his sole achievement.  But how did he perform his Partes?  Misere et haesitanter absque methodo.  Once when Praeses wished to distinguish inter rem et modum rei, he asked, Quid hoc est?—­Wretch, you should have known that antequam in arenam descendis.  Quid hoc est?  Quae bruta!  A fellow who ignores the distinctiones cardinales, and then wants to dispute publice!

Nille.  Oh, my respected son, you mustn’t take such things as that to heart.  I can see from what you say that he must be a fool.

Montanus.  An ignoramus.

Nille.  Nothing could be plainer.

Montanus.  An idiot.

Nille.  I can’t see that he is anything else.

Montanus.  Et quidem plane hospes in philosophia.  Let the dog turn away from what he committed in the presence of so many worthy people.

Nille.  Is that what he did?  By that you may know a swine.