r you know
I have not been bred up at court or trained at Salamanca, to know whether
I am adding or dropping a letter or so in my words. Why! God bless me,
it's not fair to force a Sayago-man to speak like a Toledan; maybe there
are Toledans who do not hit it off when it comes to polished talk."

"That is true," said the licentiate, "for those who have been bred up in
the Tanneries and the Zocodover cannot talk like those who are almost all
day pacing the cathedral cloisters, and yet they are all Toledans. Pure,
correct, elegant and lucid language will be met with in men of courtly
breeding and discrimination, though they may have been born in
Majalahonda; I say of discrimination, because there are many who are not
so, and discrimination is the grammar of good language, if it be
accompanied by practice. I, sirs, for my sins have studied canon law at
Salamanca, and I rather pique myself on expressing my meaning in clear,
plain, and intelligible language."

"If you did not pique yourself more on your dexterity with those foils
you carry than on dexterity of tongue," said the other student, "you
would have been head of the degrees, where you are now tail."

"Look here, bachelor Corchuelo," returned the licentiate, "you have the
most mistaken idea in the world about skill with the sword, if you think
it useless."

"It is no idea on my part, but an established truth," replied Corchuelo;
"and if you wish me to prove it to you by experiment, you have swords
there, and it is a good opportunity; I have a steady hand and a strong
arm, and these joined with my resolution, which is not small, will make
you confess that I am not mistaken. Dismount and put in practice your
positions and circles and angles and science, for I hope to make you see
stars at noonday with my rude raw swordsmanship, in which, next to God, I
place my trust that the man is yet to be born who will make me turn my
back, and that there is not one in the world I will not compel to give
ground."

"As to whether you turn your back or not, I do not concern myself,"
replied the master of fence; "though it might be that your grave would be
dug on the spot where you planted your foot the first time; I mean that
you would be stretched dead there for despising skill with the sword."

"We shall soon see," replied Corchuelo, and getting off his ass briskly,
he drew out furiously one of the swords the licentiate carried on his
beast.

"It must not be that way," said