there are so many in Spain; he might be what we take delight in calling
hyperbolically a distinguished patrician, or an eminent public man;
species which, owing to their great abundance, are hardly appreciated
at their just value. In the tender age in which the university degree
serves as a sort of solder between boyhood and manhood, few young
men--especially if they have been spoiled by their masters--are free
from an offensive pedantry, which, if it gives them great importance
beside their mamma's arm-chair, makes them very ridiculous when they
are among grave and experienced men. Jacinto had this defect, which was
excusable in him, not only because of his youth, but also because his
worthy uncle stimulated his puerile vanity by injudicious praise.

When the introduction was over they resumed their walk. Jacinto was
silent. The canon, returning to the interrupted theme of the _pyros_
which were to be grafted and the _vites_ which were to be trimmed, said:

"I am already aware that Senor Don Jose is a great agriculturist."

"Not at all; I know nothing whatever about the subject," responded
the young man, observing with no little annoyance the canon's mania of
supposing him to be learned in all the sciences.

"Oh, yes! a great agriculturist," continued the Penitentiary; "but on
agricultural subjects, don't quote the latest treatises to me. For me
the whole of that science, Senor de Rey, is condensed in what I call the
Bible of the Field, in the 'Georgics' of the immortal Roman. It is all
admirable, from that grand sentence, _Nec vero terroe ferre omnes omnia
possunt_--that is to say, that not every soil is suited to every tree,
Senor Don Jose--to the exhaustive treatise on bees, in which the poet
describes the habits of those wise little animals, defining the drone in