And at last, for lack of a better, lest
he should have forborne the matter too long, he brought it even
bluntly forth and asked us all who sat at his board's end--for at
his own place in the midst there sat but himself alone--how well we
liked his oration that he had made that day. But in faith, uncle,
when that problem was once proposed, till it was full answered, no
man, I believe, ate one morsel of meat more--every man was fallen
in so deep a study for the finding of some exquisite praise. For he
who should have brought out but a vulgar and common commendation,
would have thought himself shamed for ever. Ten said we our
sentences, by row as we sat, from the lowest unto the highest in
good order, as though it had been a great matter of the common weal
in a right solemn council. When it came to my part--I say it not,
uncle, for a boast--methought that, by our Lady, for my part, I
quit myself well enough! And I liked myself the better because
methought that, being but a foreigner, my words went yet with some
grace in the German tongue, in which, letting my Latin alone, it
pleased me to show my skill. And I hoped to be liked the better
because I saw that he who sat next to me, and should say his
sentence after me, was an unlearned priest, for he could speak no
Latin at all.
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