ifferent dishes. From Panurge's ladle came into the
soup plate as much as he took every time out of the tureen; and as it was
the rule of the court that every one should appear to eat, as long as he
sat at table, there was the clattering of nine and thirty spoons against
the silver soup-plates for a quarter of an hour. They were then removed,
and knives and forks were in motion for half an hour. Glasses were
continually handed round in the mean time, and then everything was removed,
except the great tureen of soup. The second course was now served up, in
dispatching which half an hour was consumed; and at the conclusion the wise
men of Pontemaca had just as much in their stomachs as Pantagruel in his
head from their address: for nothing was cooked up for them in every
possible shape that Panurge could devise.

"Wine-glasses, large decanters, fruit dishes, and plates were now set on.
Pantagruel and Epistemon alternately gave bumper toasts: the University of
Pontemaca, the eye of the world, the mother of taste and good sense and
universal learning, the patroness of utility, and the second only to
Pantagruel in wisdom and virtue (for these were her titles), was drank
standing with thrice three times three, and huzzas and clattering of
glasses; but to such wine the wise men of Pontemaca had not been
accustomed; and though Pantagruel did not suffer one to rise from table
till the eighty-first glass had been emptied, not even the weakest headed
master of arts felt his head in the least indisposed. The decanters indeed
were often removed, but they were brought back replenished, filled always
with nothing.

"Silence was now proclaimed, and in a trice Panurge leaped into the large
silver tureen. Thence he made his bows to Pantagruel and the whole company,
and commenced an oration of signs, which lasted an hour and a half, and in
which he went over all the matter contained in the Pontemaca address; and
though the wise men looked very serious during the whole time, Pantagruel
himself and his whole {214} court could not help indulging in repeated
bursts of laughter. It was universally acknowledged that he excelled
himself, and that the arguments by which he beat the English masters of
arts at Paris were nothing to the exquisite selection of attitudes which he
this day assumed. The greatest shouts of applause were excited when he was
running thrice round the tureen on its rim, with his left hand holding his
nose, and the other exerc