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The Persians call him the gur-khur, and chase him with occasional success, regarding his flesh as a great delicacy. He appears to be the Asinus onager of naturalists, a distinct species from the Asinus hemippus of Mesopotamia, and the Asinus hemionus of Thibet and Tartary. It is doubtful whether some kind of wild cattle does not still inhabit the more remote tracts of Kurdistan.
You persist in calling me Jacques, just as you persist in calling Belinda, Campana in die Bell in day. What a deplorable witticism! I could find a better in a moment. Stay," he added, "I have discovered it already." "What is it, pray, most sapient Jacques?" "Listen, most long-eared Sir Asinus." And the young man read once again;
Just as Sir Asinus reached the outskirts of the town, he observed a chariot drawn by six milk-white horses approaching from a county road which debouched, like the highway, into Gloucester street; and when this chariot arrived opposite, a head was thrust through the window, and a good-humored voice uttered the words: "Give you good day, my dear Tom!"
"Good! I accept." "Take your foil!" cried Sir Asinus, starting up. "Pardon me, most worthy knight hand it to me. I can easily prick you without rising." Sir Asinus relented. "Well, let us defer the combat," he said; "but when were you at Shadynook which, by the by, should be called Sunnybower?" "Yesterday!" "And maligned me?" "Very well war to the death in future. What news there?"
And Mowbray went home with a wounded heart, which all the smiles of Philippa could not heal for Hoffland was his rival. Denis went home with a happy heart, for Lucy had smiled on him. Sir Asinus was miserable boy Bathurst was happy. The ball at the Raleigh was a true microcosm, where John smiled and James sighed, and all played on, and went away miserable or the reverse. And so it ended.
By midnight Fauquier, playing with the nerve of a great gambler, had won them all back laughing, careless, but not more careless than when he lost. At fifteen minutes past twelve he had won a bond for two hundred pistoles from Sir Asinus; at sixteen minutes past twelve his Excellency rose, and taking the cards up with both hands, threw them out of the window.
Jacques took out his pocket-handkerchief pressed his friend's hand for the last time, and departed. He mounted his horse, gathered up the reins, and set forward again toward Shadynook, leaving the disconsolate Sir Asinus to finish his preparations for departure in his beautiful sail-boat the Rebecca. Poor Sir Asinus!
"Some come because they are made to come, others from a vocation for the church, like thyself perhaps, others from an inexplicable love of books; you should hear us when our professor Asinus Asinorum takes us in class. "Amo, amas, amat, see me catch a rat. Rego, regis, regit, let me sweat a bit." "Tace, no more Latin till tomorrow.
Then rolling up the bond which Sir Asinus had executed a moment before, he gracefully lit with it a pipe which he had just filled; and, first telling a servant "to carry lights to the chamber next to his own," said to Sir Asinus: "My dear boy, I have done wrong to-night; but this is my master passion.
"No, no," sighed Jacques reproachfully; "bad as you are, Sir Asinus " But the worthy knight had disappeared in the closet, and Jacques was silent. The cocked hat, as we have said, was succeeded by a pair of shoulders; the shoulders now appeared joined to a good portly body; and lastly, the well-clad legs of worthy Doctor Small appeared; and passing along the passage, he entered the room.
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