Page:Carroll - Notes by an Oxford Chiel.djvu/133

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.
OF THE THREE T'S.
29

for motto so trite a saying? It is, if I remember me aright, an example of a rule in the Latin Grammar.

Tutor. Sir, if we are not grammatical, we are nothing!

Ven. But for the Belfry, Sir. Sure none can look on it without an inward shudder?

Tutor. I will not gainsay it. But you are to note that it is not permanent. This shall serve its time, and a fairer edifice shall succeed it.

Ven. In good sooth I hope it. Yet for the time being it doth not, in that it is not permanent, the less disgrace the place. Drunkenness, Sir, is not permanent, and yet is held in no good esteem.

Tutor. 'Tis an apt simile.

Ven. And for these matchless arches (as you do most truly call them) would it not savour of more wholesome Art, had they matched the doorways, or the gateways?

Tutor. Sir, do you study the Mathematics?

Ven. I trust, Sir, I can do the Rule of Three as well as another: and for Long Division——

Tutor. You must know, then, that there be