nd
stately man; and yet he thinks far otherwise of me and my fellows.
What! you little stinted, stunted, stumpy, bile-faced animal, whose
nose is for ever running crimson with spite! You with the crooked
corners of your seesaw mouth, with the broken ridges and ditches in
your shrivelled half-inch forehead, you would make an outcry about my
ugliness! Why the bit of a dwarf can hardly peer out of its pulpit
when it is hubbubbing there, and is so gossamer-shankt it durst not
walk across the great square if the wind chance to be blowing strong;
the congregation are hard put to find him out when he is grimacing and
gesticulating before the altar, and need all their christian faith and
hope to believe him actually corporeally present; and such a
hop-o'-my-thumb, such a ghostly ne'er-to-be-seen, would take the tone
of a Goliah here. With thy leave, thou most invisible man of
godliness, one might cut out of my nose alone as stout a pillar of the
faith as thou art; and I won't reckon in the brace of humps which my
backbone and breastbone have built up in rivalry of each other."

The priest Theodore had already left them in anger before the end of
this speech; and the melancholy Antonio chid the little dwarf for his
wantonness. But the latter cried; "Now pray don't you also begin to
preach. Once for all I will bear that from no one else than my master;
for he came into the world on special purpose to teach morality and
philosophy and their kin. But this weathercock of a priest here, that
is driven round with such a creaking merely by his envy and malice,
because he fancies that my noble master is lowering both his authority
and his purse, he shall not unkennel his tongue from his toothless
jaws, where I can but thrust in my unwasht mouth. And from a young
student too I will brook no contradiction; for I used to have my beard
shaved, while your father was still carried about in his
chrisom-cloth; I was earning stripes at school and getting the fool's
cap hung round my ears, when they put your worshipful grandfather into
his first pair of breeches: so shew respect where it is due, and never
forget whom you have before you."

"Don't be angry, little man," said Antonio: "I meant it well with
thee."

"Mean it just as you please," returned the other. "My master is to be
a prelate, do you know that yet? and lord rector of the university.
And he has received a new gold chain as a token of royal favour from
Paris. And you must come to