so far as lectures are concerned. He has just seen a notice to that effect, in large letters, posted on the professor's door. He happens to know that the excellent man is keeping his bed, and has given strict orders not to be disturbed; having, in fact, been at a late supper-party the night before, where he had eaten and drunk rather more than was good for him. He had been engaged there, too, in a warm dispute with a Peripatetic, which had helped to disturb his digestion. The scholar is naturally anxious to know whether his master got the better of his opponent. "Yes," says his informant; "the Peripatetic being rather obstinate and argumentative, not willing to be convinced and troublesome to refute, your excellent master, having a cup in his hand such as would have rejoiced the heart of old Nestor,[1] broke his head with it—they were sitting close together—and so silenced him at once." "An excellent plan, too," says the scholar; "there's no other way of dealing with men who won't be convinced." And Lycinus gravely assures him that he quite concurs in the opinion. "It is extremely wrong and foolish," he admits, "to provoke a philosopher—especially when he happens to have a heavy goblet in his hand."
He proposes, however, that as Hermotimus cannot go to his master's lecture to-day, he should turn lecturer himself for once, so far at least as to give his old friend some account of his experience as a student of philosophy. Only one thing he would be glad to
- ↑ "Scarce might another raise it from the board
When full; but aged Nestor raised with ease."
—Iliad, xi. 635 (Lord Derby).
