e same
thrice each time, beating the ground with their heads thrice three times.
This was the accustomed form of approaching the throne, time out of mind,
and it was said to be emblematic of the usual prostration of science to the
throne of greatness.

"The mathematical professor, after having spit, and hawked, and cleared his
throat, and blown his nose on a handkerchief lent to him, for he had
forgotten to bring his own, began to read the address. In this he was
assisted by three masters of arts, one of whom, with a silver pen, pointed
out the stops; the second with a small stick rapped his knuckles when he
was to raise or lower his voice; and a third pulled his hair behind when he
was to look Pantagruel in the face. Pantagruel began to chafe like a lion:
{211} he turned first on one side, then on the other: he listened and
groaned, and groaned and listened, and was in the utmost cogitabundity of
cogitation. His countenance began to brighten, when, at the end of an hour,
the reader stammered out these words:

"'It has therefore been most clearly proved that as all matter may be
divided into parts infinitely smaller than the infinitely smallest part of
the infinitesimal of nothing, so nothing has all the properties of
something, and may become, by just and lawful right, susceptible of
addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, squaring, and cubing: that
it is to all intents and purposes as good as anything that has been, is, or
can be taught in the nine universities of the land, and to deprive it of
its rights is a most cruel innovation and usurpation, tending to destroy
all just subordination in the world, making all universities superfluous,
leveling vice-chancellors, doctors, and proctors, masters, bachelors, and
scholars, to the mean and contemptible state of butchers and
tallow-chandlers, bricklayers and chimney-sweepers, who, if it were not for
these learned mysteries, might think that they knew as much as their
betters. Every one then, who has the good of science at heart, must pray
for the interference of his highness to put a stop to all the disputes
about nothing, and by his decision to convince all gainsayers that the
science of nothing is taught in the best manner in the universities, to the
great edification and improvement of all the youth in the land.'

"Here Pantagruel whispered in the ear of Panurge, who nodded to Epistemon,
and they two left the assembly, and did not return for an hour, till the