e of the worthy schoolmaster's
nephew, laughed heartily at the eloquence of his uncle, who, he could
perceive, had been tampering a little with something stronger than water
in the course of the evening.

"What can keep this boy." exclaimed Ginty; "he knew we were waiting for
him, and he ought to be here now."

"The youth will come," said the schoolmaster, "and a hospitable youth
he is--_me ipso teste_, as I myself can bear witness. I was in his
apartments in the _Collegium Sanctae Trinitatis_, as they say, which
means the blessed union of dulness, laziness, and wealth, for which
the same divine establishment has gained an appropriate and just
celebrity--I say I was in his apartments, where I found himself and
a few of his brother students engaged in the agreeable relaxation of
taking a hair of the same dog that bit them, after a liberal compotation
on the preceding night. Third place, as a scholar! Well! who may he
thank for that, I interrogate. Not one Denis O'Donegan!--O no; the said
Denis is an ignoramus, and knows nothing of the classics. Well, be it
so. All I say is, that I wish I had one classical lick at their provost,
I would let him know what the master of a plantation seminary (*--a
periphrasis for hedge-school) could do when brought to the larned
scratch?"

"How does Tom look, uncle." asked Corbet; "we can't say that he has
shown much affection for his friends since he went to college."

"How could you expect it, Charley, my worthy nepos." said the
schoolmaster--"These sprigs of classicality, when once they get
under the wing of the collegium aforesaid, which, like a comfortable,
well-feathered old bird of the stubble, warms them into what is
ten times better than celebrity--_videlicet_, snug and independent
dulness--these sprigs, I say, especially, when their parents or
instructors happen to be poor, fight shy of the frieze and caubeen at
home, and avoid the risk of resuscitating old associations. Tom, Charley
looks--at least he did when I saw him to-day--very like a lad who is
more studious of the bottle than the book; but I will not prejudge the
youth, for I remember what he was while under my tuition. If he be
as cunning now and assiduous in the prosecution of letters as I found
him--if he be as cunning, as ripe at fiction, and of as unembarrassed
brow as he was in his schoolboy career, he will either hang, on the one
side, or rise to become lord chancellor or a bishop on the other."

"He will be n