Each of these games took a whole day, lasting between dinner and the time to enjoy a nap. Gargantua always thought it necessary to prepare for his afternoon sleep by taking a little drink. His companions must have been heavy drinkers, — regular old topers of the jolly order,
— because the allowance every day called for eleven pots of wine for each man. After drinking such a quantity they would naturally feel drowsy. They would then stretch themselves on the carpet, and snore away, each snorer playing a different tune through his nose, in the midst of the cards lying loosely around, and the emptied pots, — all except Gargantua, whose breathing on such occasions was always of the hurricane fashion, whether awake or asleep. He would sleep for two or three hours like a good Christian, without thinking of any evil thing, and without muttering a single bad word in his dreams. On waking, he had a trick of giving his great ears a half-dozen shakes,
— why, I don't know, — and then bawling out for fresh wine, which he drank down in one great gulp. Then came the only study for the day, which was rather a mystery for all parties. Nobody could say exactly what it was, and Master Ponocrates only smiled when asked about it. It lasted for a few minutes only, after which Gargantua would mount, in high state, an old mule which had already served nine kings, and briskly ride away to see where the good people of Paris caught their rabbits.
On his return, he had a habit of running in and out of the kitchen, with his broad nostrils swollen out like balloons, to find out what particular roast was on the spit, until the cook, already in a stew, was ready to tear his hair in despair. But cooks may be ever so vexed, the meat will roast on the spit all the same, and at last get done to a turn. All things being ready, Gargantua would sit down at table. He always managed to have a large company of gentlemen present, who were only too willing, for the honor of being invited to dinner by a Prince, to serve as his attendants, should he ever need their services. Among those of high birth who usually dined with him at this time were the Lords De Fou, De Gourville, De Grignaut, and De Marigny.
After supper, Gargantua—being in the liveliest humor, and disposed to look on the world with a broad laugh, showing the largest
GARGANTUA LOOKS INTO THE KITCHEN.
and whitest of teeth—would play a little, or else pay an open-air visit to some of the many pretty young ladies living in the neighborhood, — their houses being too small for him to enter, — and, on such nights, he would not get home until midnight. Sometimes, when he did not go out, he would take another little supper about eight o'clock, and still another before midnight. Then he would sleep without snoring until eight o'clock next morning.
It was a great day for Gargantua when he reached the end of his two hundred and fifteen games ; or, rather, he intended that it should be a great day. He had said nothing to any one ; but, when he woke that particular morning, he was noticed to be in a gayer mood than usual while he was dressing himself, and after he had gamboled and rolled around his bed, and stretched his limbs on it, and made his own great tent with one leg and the sheet, and given a neat turn to his long locks with his German comb, and gone through his usual gaping, coughing, spitting, groaning, sneezing, and hiccoughing. But, being in some things a very simple Giant, indeed, he had not noticed that his teacher, Ponocrates, had very keen eyes, and could use them too. Why, Ponocrates knew when the last game was to be played just as well as Gargantua himself did, and he had made up his mind to be somewhere in the room when it closed. Sure enough, listening in a corner of the big chamber, he heard some one say : " Here we are on our last game!" To which Gargantua shouted in reply : " Ho ! ho ! The last game ! Don't be too sure of that. Gentlemen, to-morrow we shall play just as well as to-day."
"How, Prince?" asked Ponocrates, softly, coming out of his corner.
"How, good Master? Why, by beginning our games over again."
" Not so fast; not so fast, Prince. To-morrow Your Highness will begin with ME ! "
CHAPTER XII.
GARGANTUA IS DOSED BY PONOCRATES, AND FORGETS ALL THAT HOLOFERNES HAD TAUGHT HIM.
WHILE the two hundred and fifteen games, taking up just that number of days, were being played, Master Ponocrates had not been at all idle. He had already consulted with Master Theodore — a wise physician of that time — and knew just what he was going to do when he had said: —
" To-morrow Your Highness will begin with ME."
The first thing was to dose Gargan-tua with a mysterious herb, which made him forget all that he had ever learned under his old teacher. This was not an original idea at all with either Theodore or Ponocrates, for Thimotes, the music-master of Miletus, had long before dosed, in the same way, such disciples of his as had been unlucky enough to have first learned their notes under other musicians. Gargantua, when asked by Ponocrates to meet certain scientific gentlemen of Paris who had been specially invited to inspire the royal Giant with love of knowledge, was so weak and pale after his dose that he could only bow his head, while wondering lazily to himself what all these heavy talks about Science had to do with the Latin, which his good old Father Grandgousier had been so anxious for him to learn.
When he had been dosed enough to forget his old studies, and even to look up with a mild surprise when his dearly-loved Master Holofernes was mentioned, Gargantua was put through a course of study, in which he did not lose a single hour of the day. Only think how much he must have learned each day ! First, he was roused up, whether he wanted or not, at four o'clock every morning, when he said his prayers. While the attendants were rubbing his body down, a young page would read, in a loud voice, so as to be heard above the scrubbing, some extracts from a book of good doctrine. After this, being not more than half-dressed yet, his practice was to visit each of his companions in his room, and with a gentle " Get thee up, my boy ! get thee up !" awake the lazy fellow from his slumbers. Then he returned to his room, where he found Ponocrates always ready to explain what was doubtful in the chapters that had been read to him, and to ask him whether he had
PONOCRATES DOSES GARGANTUA.
noted, as he should, what signs the sun morning, and what moon would have was entering that aspect he thought the that night.
It was only after this that his attendants began to dress him, to perfume him, to curl him, and to powder him — Gargantua all the while not once venturing to use that large, well-thumbed German comb of which he had once been so proud. While all this was going on, the same page would repeat the lesson of the day. Gargantua, thoroughly dosed and brought down to a most anxious desire for study, learned after two or three days to repeat the lessons by heart. Everybody looked glad at this — none more so than good Master Ponocrates himself— especially when the debate touched on such a question as the "Human State," which was made the special lesson for two or three hours. While Gargantua was still puzzling over the reading of the
"Human State," and learning all around the best talk about it, the big clock would strike eleven; and then he would, with all his friends, walk soberly to the ground where they would play at the good old game of ball, exercising their bodies till all their muscles grew tired. From the field it was an easy way to the house, where Gargantua, being first rubbed down and after a change of shirt, would walk meekly, surrounded by his friends, towards the kitchen to ask if the dinner was ready. While waiting for the cook — now no longer in a stew, and
GARGAXTUA AT HIS LESSONS