Three good giants

"Here are the finest horses, gentlemen, in the world. This one next the door is my favorite riding-horse. That one near the fireplace is my pacer,— a good one, I assure you. Now, just look at that one leaning against yonder window. I rode it rather hard yesterday, and it is tired. That's my hunting-nag. I had it at a great price from Frankfort; but I am willing to make you a present of it. Don't refuse me, I beg. Once on it, you can bag all the partridges and hares you may come across for the whole winter. Now, choose ; which of you will ride my hunting-nag ? "

The Chief Equerry and the Grand Steward, knowing that all these fine names of "riding-horse," and "pacer," and "hunting-nag," were for mere blocks of wood, were, for a moment, stupefied. They looked at each other slily, and half ashamed ; but the joke was too good when they thought of the long stairs they had toiled up, and of their horses below waiting all this time to be stabled and fed. They couldn't help it ; it was too rich ; so they laughed till they were tired, and then began to laugh again till they were tired again.

" A rare bird is this young scamp," panted the Chief Equerry, as he lifted one end of the great beam which Gargantua called his hunting-nag.

"A prime joker is this young rogue, if he is a Prince," panted the Grand Steward, in echo, as he stumbled along with the other end into the hall.

There was no use in being mad at the trick young Gargantua had played on them. So they left him stroking the fastest horses in the world, while they went laughing all the way across the first hall, down the small steps, across the other halls, along the corridors, past the stone gallery, down the long stairway as far as the great arch, where they let the famous hunting-nag roll to the bottom.

When they at last reached the great dining-room, where all their friends were gathered, they made everybody laugh like a swarm of flies at the trick played on them by the little Prince with his wooden horses.

CHAPTER VI. HOW GARGANTUA WAS TAUGHT LATIN.

Father Grandgousier had a very large body of his own; and, after the fashion of all good-natured giants that have ever lived, when he was pleased he was hugely pleased. So it happened that, when his friends caine around him to drink his good wine, and eat his rich dinners, and to tell him how bright his boy was, he shook all over with mighty laughter. "Ho ! ho ! ho ! ho ! " he shouted, till the big strong bottles that stood on his table jingled, and the very rafters of the dining-hall seemed to laugh with them.

'You say that my little Gargantua is quick? Ho! ho! Now, my good lords, Philip of Macedon had a son who was quick too. Yes, they said that he was as quick as that," snapping his fingers together so that they went cric-crac like a pistol shot. T You have heard of the lad, and that wild Bucephalus of his ? Bah ! I am sure my little brigand upstairs would never have waited to turn the head of Bucephalus to the sun before riding him, but would have mounted and ridden him before all the people, with his tail turned straight to the sun, and his shadow thrown plain before him ! You have decided me, my friends. Gargantua is already five years old. He is only a baby ; but he is a Giant's child with more wit than age, —that makes a difference. I have been thinking seriously lately; and it is high time that I should give my youngster to some wise man to make him wise according to his capacity."

And this Father Grandgousier began to do at once. He called, the very next day, upon one of his subjects, worthy Master Tubal Holofernes, a man famed for wisdom the country round, to teach Gar-gantua his A B C's. I am sorry to say that Master Holofernes seemed, from the first hour, to be just a little afraid of his small pupil, who, although only a baby, could easily have studied his alphabet on his teacher's bald pate, and had to bend his head even to do that. But Father

Grandgousier was, on the whole, well satisfied w r ith his son. Gar-gantua could, after five years and three months, actually recite his alphabet from A to Z ; then from Z to A; then catch it sharply up in the middle, bunching M and N together; naming the letters in fours, in eights, and in twelves, as quickly as you can think, forward and back again, and again, till all the old friends — whose noses, from good living, had become very red, and whose paunches were very big — swore, over their wine, that he was the smartest child often years they ever had seen. Of course, Father Grandgousier thought all this something wonderful. He ho-ho'ed and he ha-ha'ed ! with great swelling laughter, after the fashion of Giants, until he was all out of breath, and his friends had to beg him to stop for fear of choking.

But Father Grandgousier could not rest here. He declared that

TUBAL HOLOFERNES.