_3rd Student._ Subside, my fine fellow! If the marriage
was over by ten o'clock, Jules will certainly be here
in a minute with his bride. 25

_2nd Student._ Good!--Only, so should the poet's muse
have been universally acceptable, says Bluphocks, _et
canibus nostris_--and Delia not better known to our
literary dogs than the boy Giovacchino!

_1st Student._ To the point now. Where's Gottlieb, 30
the new-comer? Oh--listen, Gottlieb, to what has called
down this piece of friendly vengeance on Jules, of which
we now assemble to witness the winding-up. We are all
agreed, all in a tale, observe, when Jules shall burst out
on us in a fury by and by: I am spokesman--the verses 35
that are to undeceive Jules bear my name of Lutwyche--but
each professes himself alike insulted by this strutting
stone-squarer, who came alone from Paris to Munich,
and thence with a crowd of us to Venice and Possagno
here, but proceeds in a day or two alone again--oh, alone 40
indubitably!--to Rome and Florence. He, forsooth, take
up his portion with these dissolute, brutalized, heartless
bunglers!--so he was heard to call us all: now, is Schramm
brutalized, I should like to know? Am I heartless?

_Gottlieb._ Why, somewhat heartless; for, suppose Jules 45
a coxcomb as much as you choose, still, for this mere
coxcombry, you will have brushed off--what do folks
style it?--the bloom of his life.

Is it too late to alter? These love-letters now, you
call his--I can't laugh at them. 50

_4th Student._ Because you never read the sham letters
of our inditing which drew forth these.

_Gottlieb._ His discovery of the truth will be frightful.

_4th Student._ That's the joke. But you should have
joined us at the beginning; there's no doubt he loves the 55
girl--loves a model he might hire by the hour!

_Gottlieb._ See here! "He has been accustomed," he
writes, "to have Canova's women about him, in stone,
and the world's women beside him, in flesh; these being
as much below, as those above, his soul's aspiration; 60
but now he is to have the reality." There you laugh
again! I say, you wipe off the very dew of his youth.

_1st Student._ Schramm! (Take the pipe out of his
mouth, somebody!)