Three good giants

Gargantua must now learn Latin. The young Giant was made, not only to study Latin, but to write, besides that, his own books of study in Gothic letters, there being no printing-presses in those days.

To learn all this took him thirteen years, six months, and two weeks.

Bythistime, Garantua had grown so tall tnat » when called to recite » ne could not make his answer heard

by Master Holofernes, who was rather deaf, unless by bending down and whispering it, because his voice was so strong that his ordinary tone would have, at that close distance, broken the drums of the old man's ears. What he thought he needed, therefore, was a writing-desk. It was very hard to find a desk quite suited to him for writing down what he had to say. They hunted near and far for one. At last one was found in the possession of a stunted old giant, living in a cave near by, who all his life had been hoping to grow as tall as King Grandgousier himself. This poor giant had, however, been thrown into despair because he had suddenly stopped growing, and still lacked a dozen feet or so of being as tall as he wanted to be. He gave up the desk he had used so long, with a great sob that shook the mountain in the caves of which he lived. Gargantua, although not full-grown, did not find a desk of seven hundred thousand pounds' weight at all in his way, for it was just suited to his size.

His ink-horn, weighing as much as a ton of merchandise, swung by heavy iron chains from the side of the desk. From it Gargantua, with a pen-holder as large as the great Pillar of Enay, used to write his Latin exercises. Master Holofernes kept him at all this for eighteen years and eleven months, and so thorough did he become that he could recite his Latin exercises by heart, backwards. He went on studying after this some of the harder books for sixteen years and two months, when he had the misfortune of losing his old teacher very suddenly.

One day, unexpectedly, Father Grandgousier called his friends around him, — who had, by this time, gained redder noses and bigger paunches than ever, - to see how strong his son was in Latin. He also invited a friend of his who, he was sure, did know Latin.

Then he shouted out, " Come, my little one, and show these friends of thy father what thou hast learned of Latin. See, here is a gentleman who knows it as he does his breviary. He shall examine thee, and tell us how much thou hast learned under faithful Master Holofernes, whom we all honor."

And the learned friend began on poor Gargantua, and poured on him question after question for six mortal hours. Father Grandgousier, who, by the way, had understood not one word of it all, turned to him at the end triumphantly: —

"Now, good sir, art thou not convinced that my boy knows his Latin ? "

Then, that learned friend, although just a little trembling, to be sure, answered quietly enough : —

" With my Liege's permission, Prince Gargantua does not know any more Latin than Your own Gracious Majesty."

What!

WHAT !!

WHAT!!!

FLIGHT OF THE TUTOR.

roared Father Grandgousier, each time making that very short word longer and louder and fiercer, and jumping to his feet he fairly kicked learned Master Ilolofernes out of the palace ; meanwhile, rolling his eyes around in his rage, and gnashing his teeth in so horrible a way that the noses of his old friends who had sat at his table for sixty years, and more, turned pale for once, through fright; and there were those of the household who said that, as they fled from the dining-room, in terror, even the paunches of these old friends seemed, somehow, to have grown as flat as the royal pancakes they had just been eating.

CHAPTER VII. THE NEW MASTER FOUND FOR GARGANTUA.

THAT ! not know thy Latin ! After forty-eight years, seven months, and two days ! Then, my little rogue, it is to Paris thou must go."

This is what Grandgousier said to Gargantua just one week after that luckless dinner. I will tell you how it all happened. The first thing the old Kino- did the next morning was to send, post-haste, to his good friend, Don Philip of the Marshes, Viceroy of Papeligosse, who knew Latin, and who had told him, years and years before, that poor Master

Holofernes was nothing but a bit of an old humbug (humbug was not quite the word used at that time, but the meaning was all the same). "Come to me, my friend," he wrote, "thou art always prating of thy Latin scholars. Xow bring one of thy wonders along with thee."

So Don Philip came in great state, as befitted a visit to his King, accompanied by the prettiest, the jauntiest, the sharpest, the politest, the sweetest-voiced little fellow ever seen. Don Philip introduced the curled darling as Master Eudemon, his page.

"Your Majesty sees this child ? " he asked. " He is not yet twelve years old; yet I dare promise that he will prove to Your Majesty, if it be your pleasure, what difference there really is between the old dreamers of the past and the lads of the present."