ration hereafter to
be mentioned--but a small silver piece as well?" suggested the jester,
who had been for some moments buried in thought.

"Ha!" ejaculated the scamp-student, brightening. "Your gift would
match the piece I already have and which--dolt that I was!--I
overlooked to include in my chain of reasoning." And thrusting his
hand into his ragged doublet, after some search he extracted a
diminutive disk upon which he gazed not without ardor. "Thus are we
forced to start the chain of reasoning anew," he remarked, "with Horace
and this bit of metal on one side of the scales and Nanette on the
other. Now unless the devil sits on the beam with Nanette--which he's
like to do--the book and the bit of dross will outweigh her and we
arrive at the certitude that life, qualified as to duration, may be
happily endured."

"What argument does the dross carry, knave?" demanded the fool, looking
down at the hound that crouched at his feet.

"With it may be purchased that which warms the pinched stomach. With
it may be bought an elixir, so strong and magical, it may breed
defiance even of Nanette. Sir Fool, I have concluded to accept life
and the small silver piece."

"Well and good," commented the jester. "But there are conditions
attached to my clemency."

"Conditions!" retorted the vagabond. "What are conditions to a
philosopher, once he has reached a logical assurance?"

"First, you must find me a horse. Your Nanette, as I take it, is a
gipsy and in the camp, are, surely, horses."

"But why should you want a horse? 'Tis not far to the castle?" said
the puzzled scholar.

"No; but 'tis far away from it. Next, tell me where you got that small
piece of silver, like the one I have promised you?"

"From Nanette."

"What for?"

"To accomplish that which I have failed to do," replied the student,
willingly. "But, alas, not having earned it, have I the right idly to
spend it?" he added, dolefully, half to himself.

"Why did Nanette--" began the jester.

But the other raised his arm with an expostulatory gesture. "Many
things I know," he interrupted; "odds and ends of erudition, but a
woman's mind I know not, nor want to know. I had as soon question
Beelzebub as her; yea, to stir up the devil with a stick. If sparing
my life is contingent on my knowing why she does this, or that, then
let me pay the debt of nature."

"No; 'tis slight punishment to take from a man that which he values so
little he mu