o business to be standin' there makin' a show of meself in the middle
of Trinity College. So the lad in the cap said again, 'Take your time,
sir, take your time.' But I said to him, 'God help me, sir, I've taken
very nigh all I'll get, for I declare to you, lad, I'm over seventy
years of age. But as for your time, sir,' I said, 'I'll be wastin' no
more of it.' And wid that I put down the book, and out I wint. I mind
the sun in the square nearly dazzled the eyes out of me fool's head. I
niver seen it blazin' brighter--and there was a big bell somewhere
boomin' away, as if they'd set the heart of the world tollin'; it's
ringin' in me ears yet.... And a couple of days after that I quit out of
Dublin, and I've been trampin' back to this counthry, takin' me time, as
he said--there's no hurry now about anythin'. So that was the ind of me
University Degree."

"I just wish I could git discoorsin' wid that young feller," said old
Felix, vindictively, "himself and his tassel in his cap."

"Sure, man, 'twas no fault of his," said Mr. Polymathers, "and I can
live widout a Degree, if that's all. Me betters did before me. To tell
you the truth, I've thought often enough as I was comin' along now, that
I dunno how at all I'd have had the face to meet me poor father one of
these days, and I cocked up with a _Baccalaureatus in Artibus_, and he
wid not so much as a dacint stone over his grave to commemorate his
name, that was the most illusthrious Polymath in the county Sligo, wid
more larnin' in the tip of his ear than ever I got into me ould skull.
Never a hap'orth of good was I at anythin' except the trifle of
mathematics, but he was as great at the Classics.... I used to humbug
meself somewhiles lettin' on I hankered after it because it would ha'
gratified him maybe to hear of the event. But little I ever done to
plase him, God forgive me. Let alone goin' and makin' an ould fool of
meself up at Trinity College.... 'Twas a terrible upset to him when I
turned again the Priesthood, after he had the money saved up for the
seminary and all. Words about it we had, and the ind of it was he put it
all into me brother Ned's little farm. Ned had no more fancy for larnin'
than the bastes of the field. A trifle of it would ha' come in very
handy sometimes for buyin' me books; howane'er it was not to be.... And
the books there--I on'y brought them along to lave wid you for the
youngest lad--ay, Nicholas. He has a head on his shoulders for the
ma