sprinkled a small quantity of salt, from the point of a knife, upon
the bust, at the same time raising his glass to moisten it with a
few drops of wine.

"Do not use my Homer as you would an ox!" cried the host. "Homer
shall have the place of honor, between the bowl and the garland-cake!
He is especially my poet! It was he who in Greek assisted me to
laudabilis et quidem egregie. Now we will mutually drink healths!
Jorgen shall be magister bibendi, and then we will sing 'Gaudeamus
igitur,' and 'Integer vitae.'"

"The Sexton with the cardinal's hat shall be the precentor!" cried
one of the youths from the provinces, pointing toward a rosy-cheeked
companion.

"O, now I am no longer sexton!" returned the other laughing. "If
thou bringest old histories up again, thou wilt receive thy old
school-name, 'the Smoke-squirter.'"

"But that is a very nice little history!" said the other. "We
called him 'Sexton," from the office his father held; but that,
after all, is not particularly witty. It was better with the hat,
for it did, indeed, resemble a cardinal's hat. I, in the mean time,
got my name in a more amusing manner."

"He lived near the school," pursued the other; "he could always slip
home when we had out free quarters of an hour: and then one day he
had filled his mouth with tobacco smoke, intending to blow it into
our faces; but when he entered the passage with his filled cheeks
the quarter of an hour was over, and we were again in class: the