_2nd Student._ All here! Only our poet's away--never having much meant to be present, moonstrike him! The airs of that fellow, that Giovacchino! He was in violent love with himself, and had a fair prospect of thriving in 10 his suit, so unmolested was it--when suddenly a woman falls in love with him, too; and out of pure jealousy he takes himself off to Trieste, immortal poem and all--whereto is this prophetical epitaph appended already, as Bluphocks assures me--"_Here a mammoth-poem lies, 15 Fouled to death by butterflies._" His own fault, the simpleton! Instead of cramp couplets, each like a knife in your entrails, he should write, says Bluphocks, both classically and intelligibly.--_AEsculapius, an Epic. Catalogue of the drugs: Hebe's plaister--One strip Cools_ 20 _your lip. Phoebus's emulsion--One bottle Clears your throttle. Mercury's bolus--One box Cures--_ _3rd Student._ Subside, my fine fellow! If the marriage was over by ten o'clock, Jules will certainly be here in a minute with his bride. 25 _2nd Student._ Good!--Only, so should the poet's muse have been universally acceptable, says Bluphocks, _et canibus nostris_--and Delia not better known to our literary dogs than the boy Giovacchino! _1st Student._ To the point now. Where's Gottlieb, 30 the new-comer? Oh--listen, Gottlieb, to what has called down this piece of friendly vengeance on Jules, of which we now assemble to witness the winding-up. We are all agreed, all in a tale, observe, when Jules shall burst out on us in a fury by and by: I am spokesman--the verses 35 that are to undeceive Jules bear my name of Lutwyche--but each professes himself alike insulted by this strutting stone-squarer, who came alone from Paris to Munich, and thence with a crowd of us to Venice and Possagno here, but proceeds in a day or two alone again--oh, alone 40 indubitably!--to Rome and Florence. He, forsooth, take up his portion with these dissolute, brutalized, heartless bunglers!--so he was heard to call us all: now, is Schramm brutalized, I should like to know? Am I heartless? _Gottlieb._ Why, somewhat heartless; for, suppose Jules 45 a coxcomb as much as you choose, still, for this mere coxcombry, you will have brushed off--what do folks style it?--the bloom of his life. Is it too late to alter? These love-letters now, you call his--I can't laugh at them. 50 _4th Student._ Because you never read the sham letters of our inditing which drew forth these. _Gottlieb._ His discovery of the truth will be frightful. _4th Student._ That's the joke. But you should have joined us at the beginning; there's no doubt he loves the 55 girl--loves a model he might hire by the hour!