“Ah! indeed.”
“Est penes hominem arbitrium et ratio.”
“Why, really,” cried the abbé, “you know Latin, then, you clown?”
“I know what you taught me of it,” modestly replied Pitou.
“Yes, revised, corrected, augmented, and embellished with barbarisms.”
“Good again, Monsieur Abbé,—barbarisms! and who is there who does not commit them?”
“Vile fellow!” cried the abbé, evidently wounded by this apparent tendency of Pitou to generalize. “What! do you believe that I am guilty of barbarisms?”
“You would commit them in the eyes of a man who was a better Latin scholar than yourself.”
“Only hear that!” cried the abbé, turning pale with anger, and yet struck with the reasoning, which was not devoid of point.
Then, in a melancholy tone:—
“There, in two words, is the system of these vile wretches; they destroy and degrade, and who profits by it? They know not even themselves; it is to the profit of the unknown. Come now, Monsieur Dunce, speak out freely; do you know any one who is a better Latin scholar than I am?”
“No; but there may be many, although I do not know them,—I do not know everything.”
“Zounds! I believe you.”
Pitou made the sign of the cross.
“What are you doing there, libertine?”
“You swore, Monsieur Abbé, and I crossed myself.”
“Why, rascal, have you come here to tympanize me?”
“To tympanize you!” repeated Pitou.
“Ah, good; now again you do not comprehend—”
“Oh, yes! I understand it well enough. Ah! thanks to you, I know the roots of words—tympanize—tympanum—drum; it comes from the Greek tympanon, drum or bell.”
The abbé appeared perfectly astounded.
“Root, typos, mark, vestige; and as Lancelot says in his Garden of Greek Roots, typos, the form which impresses itself, which word evidently comes from tupto, strike. There you have it.”
“Ah! ah! rascallion!” cried the abbé, more and more dumfounded. “It seems that you yet know something, even what you did not know.”
“Pooh!” ejaculated Pitou, with affected modesty.
“How did it happen that during the whole time you were with me, you could not answer me as you have now done?”
“Because, during the time I was with you, Abbé Fortier, you brutalized me; because, by your despotism you repelled my intelligence, imprisoned within my memory all that liberty has since brought forth from it. Yes, liberty,” continued Pitou, becoming more energetic as he proceeded; “do you hear me?—liberty!”
“Ah! rascal!”
“Monsieur Professor,” said Pitou, with an air which was not exempt from threat,—”Monsieur Professor, do not insult me. Contumelia non argumentum, says an orator; insult is not reasoning.”
“I think that the fellow,” cried the abbé, in great fury,—”I think that the fellow imagines it necessary to translate his Latin to me.”
“It is not my Latin, Monsieur Abbé; it is Cicero’s,—that is to say, the Latin of a man who assuredly would have thought that you made as many barbarisms in comparison with him as I do in comparison with you.”
“You do not expect, I hope,” cried the Abbé Fortier, somewhat shaken on his pedestal,—”you do not expect, I hope, that I should discuss with you?”
“And why not? If from the discussion light is to proceed, abstrusa in venis silicis.”
“How! how!” exclaimed the Abbé Fortier; “why, really, the fellow has been in the Revolutionary school.”
“How can that be, since you yourself have said that the Revolutionists are fools and ignoramuses?”
“Yes, I do say so.”
“Then you are making a false reasoning, my worthy abbé, and your syllogism is badly founded.”
“Badly founded! What say you? I have badly founded a syllogism?”
“Undoubtedly, Monsieur l’Abbé. Pitou reasons and speaks well; Pitou has been to the Revolutionary school,—the Revolutionists consequently reason and speak well. There is no getting out of that.”
“Animal! brute! simpleton!”
“Do not molest me by your words, Monsieur Abbé. Objurgatio imbellem animum arguit, weakness betrays itself by anger.”
The abbé shrugged his shoulders.
“Answer me,” said Pitou.
“You say that the Revolutionists speak well and reason well. But tell me the name of any one of those wretches who knows how to read and write.”
“That is blinking the point in discussion; but I will answer you, nevertheless. I can read and write,” cried Pitou, with assurance.
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