“Well,” says Mat, “and may be you would be as well off if you had picked up your larnin' in our own Thrinity; there's good picking in Thrinity, for gentlemen like you, that are sober, and harmless about the brains, in regard of not being overly bright.”
“You talk with contempt of a hedge-school,” replied the other master. “Did you never hear, for all so long as you war in Cambridge, of a nate little spot in Greece called the groves of Academus?
“What was Plato himself but a hedge schoolmaster? and, with humble submission, it casts no slur on an Irish tacher to be compared to him, I think. You forget also, sir, that the Dhruids taught under their oaks: eh?”
“Ay,” added Mat, “and the Tree of Knowledge, too. Faith, an' if that same tree was now in being, if there wouldn't be hedge schoolmasters, there would be plenty of hedge scholars, any how--particularly if the fruit was well tasted.”
“I believe, Millbank, you must give in,” said Squire Johnston. “I think you have got the worst of it.”
“Why,” said Mat, “if the gintleman's not afther bein' sacked clane, I'm not here.”
“Are you a mathematician?” inquired Mat's friend, determined to follow up his victory; “do you know Mensuration?”
“Come, I do know Mensuration,” said the Englishman, with confidence.
“And how would you find the solid contents of a load of thorns?”
“Ay, or how will you consther and parse me this sintince?” said Mat--
“'Ragibus et clotibus solemus stopere windous, Non numerus sumus et fruges consumere nati, Stercora flat stiro raro terra-tanfcaro bungo.'”
“Aisy, Mister Kavanagh,” replied the other; “let the Cantabrigian resolve the one I propounded him first.”
“And let the Cantabrigian then take up mine,” said Mat: “and if he can expound it, I'll give him a dozen more to bring home in his pocket, for the Cambridge folk to crack after their dinner, along wid their nuts.”
“Can you do the 'Snail?'” inquired the stranger..
“Or 'A and B on opposite sides of a wood,' without the Key?” said Mat.
“Maybe,” said the stranger, who threw off the frize jock, and exhibited a muscular frame of great power, cased in an old black coat--“maybe the gintleman would like to get a small taste of the '_Scuffle_'”
“Not at all,” replied the Englishman; “I have not the least curiosity for it--I assure you I have not. What the deuce do they mean, Johnston? I hope you have influence over them.”