“That is, you have no point d’honneur,” said the cornetist. “Odi profanum vulgus et arceo, as the Latin has it.”  “Well, there must be some churches on the road,” struck in the third; “we can stop at the Herr Pastors’.”  “No, I thank you,” said the cornetist; “they give little money, but long sermons on the folly of philandering about the world when we might be acquiring knowledge, and they wax specially eloquent when they sniff in me a future member of their fraternity.  No, no, clericus clericum non decimat.  But why be in such a hurry?  The Herr Professors are still at Carlsbad, and are sure not to be precise about the very day.”  “Nay, distinguendum est inter et inter,” replied the other; “quod licet Jovi, non licet bovi!”

I now saw that they were students from Prague, and I conceived a great respect for them, especially as they spoke Latin like their mother-tongue.  “Is the gentleman a student?” the cornetist asked me.  I replied modestly that I had always been very fond of study, but that I had had no money.  “That’s of no consequence,” said the cornetist; “we have neither money nor rich patrons, but we get along by mother-wit. Aurora musis amica, which means, being interpreted, ’Do not waste too much time at breakfast.’  But when the bells at noon echo from tower to tower, and from mountain to mountain, and the scholars crowd out of the old dark lecture-room, and swarm shouting through the streets, we betake us to the Capuchin monastery, to the father who presides in the refectory, where there is sure to be a table spread for us, or if not actually spread, there will be at least a dish apiece, and we fall to, and perfect ourselves at the same time in our Latin.  So you see we study right ahead from day to day.  And when at last the vacation comes, and all the others depart for their homes, by coach or on horseback, then we stroll forth through the streets and through the city gate with our instruments under our cloaks and the world before us.”

I can’t tell how it was, but, while he spoke, the thought that such learned people were so forlorn and forsaken in this world went to my very heart.  And then I thought of myself, and how I was not much better off, and the tears came into my eyes.  The cornetist eyed me askance.  “I wouldn’t give a fig,” he went on, “to travel with horses, and coffee, and freshly-made beds, and nightcaps and boot-jacks, all ordered beforehand.  It’s just the delightful part of it that, when we set out early in the morning, and the birds of passage are winging their flight high in the air above us, we do not know what chimney is smoking for us today, and can never foresee what special piece of luck may befall us before evening.”  “Yes,” said the other, “and wherever we go, and take out our instruments, people are merry; and when we play at noon in the vestibule of some great country-house, the maids will dance before the door, and their masters and mistresses will have the drawing-room door opened