The Youth of Jefferson | Page 2

a tinge of red.
"Ah, my dear forlorn lover!" he cried, grasping his visitor's hand, "I thought you were that rascally proctor, and was really preparing for a hand-to-hand conflict, to the death."
"Indeed!"
"Yes, sir! could I expect anything else, from the way you turned my knob? You puzzled me."
"So I see," said his visitor; "you had your gun, and were evidently afraid."
"Afraid? Never!"
"Afraid of your shadow!"
"At least I never would have betrayed fear had I seen you!" retorted the occupant of the chamber. "You are so much in love that a fly need not be afraid of you. Poor Jacquelin! poor melancholy Jacques! a feather would knock you down."
The melancholy Jacques sat down sighing.
"The fact is, my dear fellow," he said, "I am the victim of misfortune: but who complains? I don't, especially to you, you great lubber, shut up here in your den, and with no hope or fear on earth, beyond pardon of your sins of commission at the college, and dread of the proctor's grasp! You are living a dead life, while I--ah! don't speak of it. What were you reading?"
"That deplorable Latin song. Salve your ill-humor with it!"
And he handed his visitor, by this time stretched carelessly upon a lounge, the open volume. He read:
"Orientis partibus Adventavit asinus, Pulcher et fortissimus, Sarcinis aptissimus.
"Hez, sire asne, car chantez Belle bouche rechignez, Vous aurez du foin assez, Et de l'avoine a plantez."
"Good," said the visitor satirically; "that suits you--except it should be 'occidentis partibus:' our Sir Asinus comes from the west. And by my faith, I think I will in future dub you Sir Asinus, in revenge for calling me--me, the most cheerful of light-hearted mortals--the 'melancholy Jacques.'"
"Come, come!" said the gentleman threatened with this sobriquet, "that's too bad, Jacques."
"Jacques! You persist in calling me Jacques, just as you persist in calling Belinda, Campana in die--Bell in day. What a deplorable witticism! I could find a better in a moment. Stay," he added, "I have discovered it already."
"What is it, pray, most sapient Jacques?"
"Listen, most long-eared Sir Asinus."
And the young man read once again;
"Hez, sire asne, car chantez, BELLE BOUCHE rechignez; Vous aurez du foin assez, Et de l'avoine a plantez."
"Well," said his friend, "now that you have mangled that French with your wretched pronunciation, please explain how my lovely Belinda--come, don't sigh and scowl because I say 'my,' for you know it's all settled--tell me where in these lines you find her name."
"In the second," sighed Jacques.
"Oh yes!--bah!"
"There you are sneering. You make a miserable Latin pun, by which you translate Belinda into Campana in die--Bell in day--and when I improve your idea, making it really good, you sneer."
"Really, now!--well, I don't say!"
"Belle-bouche! Could any thing be finer? 'Pretty-mouth!' And then the play upon Bel, in Belinda, by the word Belle. Positively, I will in future call her nothing else. Belle-bouche--pretty-mouth! Ah!"
And the unfortunate lover stretched languidly upon the lounge, studied the ceiling, and sighed piteously.
His friend burst into a roar of laughter. Jacques--for let us adopt the sobriquets all round--turned negligently and said:
"Pray what are you braying at, Sir Asinus?"
"At your sighs."
"Did I sigh?"
"Yes, portentously!"
"I think you are mistaken."
"No!"
"I never sigh."
And the melancholy Jacques uttered a sigh which was enough to shatter all his bulk.
The consequence was that Sir Asinus burst into a second roar of laughter louder than before, and said:
"Come, my dear Jacques, unbosom! You have been to see----"
"Belle-bouche--Belle-bouche: but I am not in love with her."
"Oh no--of course not," said his friend, laughing ironically.
Jacques sighed.
"She don't like me," he said forlornly.
"She's very fond of me though," said his friend. "Only yesterday--but I am mad to be talking about it."
With which words Sir Asinus turned away his head to hide his mischievous and triumphant smile.
Poor Jacques looked more forlorn than ever; which circumstance seemed to afford his friend extreme delight.
"Why not pay your addresses to Philippa, Jacques my boy?" he said satirically; "there's no chance for you with Belle-bouche, as you call her."
"Philippa? No, no!" sighed Jacques; "she's too brilliant."
"For you?"
"Even for me--me, the prince of wits, and coryph?us of coxcombs: yes, yes!"
And the melancholy Jacques sighed again, and looked around him with the air of a man whose last hope on earth has left him.
His friend chokes down a laugh; and stretching himself in the bright spring sunshine pouring through the window, says with a smile:
"Come, make a clean breast of it, old fellow. You were there to-day?"
"Yes, yes."
"Have a pleasant time?"
"Can't say I did."
"Were there any visitors?"
"A dozen--you understand the description of visitors."
"No; what sort?"
"Fops in embryo, and aspirants after wit-laurels."
"It is well you went--they must have been thrown in the shade. For you, my dear Jacques, are undeniably the most perfect fop, and the greatest wit--in your own opinion--of this pleasant village of Devilsburg."
"No, no," replied his companion with well-affected modesty; "I