ons, magistrates, and other people in authority
being sincerely pitied for their shortcomings, while opinions on how
they ought to conduct themselves and their affairs to be properly
respected, were exchanged in a large-minded and disinterested manner.

Jude Fawley, with the self-conceit, effrontery, and _aplomb_ of
a strong-brained fellow in liquor, threw in his remarks somewhat
peremptorily; and his aims having been what they were for so many
years, everything the others said turned upon his tongue, by a sort
of mechanical craze, to the subject of scholarship and study, the
extent of his own learning being dwelt upon with an insistence that
would have appeared pitiable to himself in his sane hours.

"I don't care a damn," he was saying, "for any provost, warden,
principal, fellow, or cursed master of arts in the university! What
I know is that I'd lick 'em on their own ground if they'd give me a
chance, and show 'em a few things they are not up to yet!"

"Hear, hear!" said the undergraduates from the corner, where they
were talking privately about the pups.

"You always was fond o' books, I've heard," said Tinker Taylor, "and
I don't doubt what you state. Now with me 'twas different. I always
saw there was more to be learnt outside a book than in; and I took my
steps accordingly, or I shouldn't have been the man I am."

"You aim at the Church, I believe?" said Uncle Joe. "If you are such
a scholar as to pitch yer hopes so high as that, why not give us a
specimen of your scholarship? Canst say the Creed in Latin, man?
That was how they once put it to a chap down in my country."

"I should think so!" said Jude haughtily.

"Not he! Like his conceit!" screamed one of the ladies.

"Just you shut up, Bower o' Bliss!" said one of the undergraduates.
"Silence!" He drank off the spirits in his tumbler, rapped with it
on the counter, and announced, "The gentleman in the corner is going
to rehearse the Articles of his Belief, in the Latin tongue, for the
edification of the company."

"I won't!" said Jude.

"Yes--have a try!" said the surplice-maker.

"You can't!" said Uncle Joe.

"Yes, he can!" said Tinker Taylor.

"I'll swear I can!" said Jude. "Well, come now, stand me a small
Scotch cold, and I'll do it straight off."

"That's a fair offer," said the undergraduate, throwing down the
money for the whisky.

The barmaid concocted the mixture with the bearing of a person
compelled to live amongst animal