plodding. But, having first drunk five and twenty or thirty good draughts,
retire yourself and sleep your fill, for in the morning I will argue
against and answer my master the Englishman, and if I drive him not ad
metam non loqui, then call me knave. Yea but, said he, my friend Panurge,
he is marvellously learned; how wilt thou be able to answer him? Very
well, answered Panurge; I pray you talk no more of it, but let me alone.
Is any man so learned as the devils are? No, indeed, said Pantagruel,
without God's especial grace. Yet for all that, said Panurge, I have
argued against them, gravelled and blanked them in disputation, and laid
them so squat upon their tails that I have made them look like monkeys.
Therefore be assured that to-morrow I will make this vain-glorious
Englishman to skite vinegar before all the world. So Panurge spent the
night with tippling amongst the pages, and played away all the points of
his breeches at primus secundus and at peck point, in French called La
Vergette. Yet, when the condescended on time was come, he failed not to
conduct his master Pantagruel to the appointed place, unto which, believe
me, there was neither great nor small in Paris but came, thinking with
themselves that this devilish Pantagruel, who had overthrown and vanquished
in dispute all these doting fresh-water sophisters, would now get full
payment and be tickled to some purpose. For this Englishman is a terrible
bustler and horrible coil-keeper. We will see who will be conqueror, for
he never met with his match before.

Thus all being assembled, Thaumast stayed for them, and then, when
Pantagruel and Panurge came into the hall, all the schoolboys, professors
of arts, senior sophisters, and bachelors began to clap their hands, as
their scurvy custom is. But Pantagruel cried out with a loud voice, as if
it had been the sound of a double cannon, saying, Peace, with a devil to
you, peace! By G--, you rogues, if you trouble me here, I will cut off the
heads of everyone of you. At which words they remained all daunted and