_Pulito._ “Good evening, gentlemen. You certainly have the true atrabilious aspect; ’twould spoil my face for a week to sit in close proximity with two such melancholy phizes. With your leave, therefore, Messieurs, I will take a cup, adjust my flowing locks, and be off. What beautiful little acorn-goblets you have here, Nescio, and then the delicacy of the beverage, so nicely adapted to the season. You have a rare taste in these matters, Quod.” _Tristo._ “Ah! Pulito, you are always the same careless fellow, and ’twere vain to hope for any thing else from you; but cannot you sit down for one evening and have a long and sober talk. You know some of us leave town soon, and we may not have another opportunity.” _Pulito._ “Indeed, Tristo, I am sorry to disappoint you; but _this_ evening I have an engagement from which I really cannot get excused; the rest of the term I am entirely at your service.” _Nescio._ “I’ll wager any thing from a pin’s head to ‘this great globe itself’ that there’s a lady in the case.” _Pulito._ “Weel, an there be, gude Maister Quod.” _Nescio._ “Why you remember your boastful resolution to eschew all connection with any thing more substantial than ‘Fancy’s daughters three,’ during the hot weather.” _Pulito._ “And whether these be ‘Faith, Hope and Charity,’ or ‘Wine, Women and Coxcombry,’ depends very much upon the _fancier_’s temperament.” _Tristo._ “I am afraid, my dear Pulito, that your aspirations after learning are becoming less ardent; and unless you are more earnest, your poetic ambition will fain be contented with being laureate of the Coffee Club.” _Pulito._ “‘What is learning but a cloak-bag of books, cumbersome for a gentleman to carry? and the muses fit to make wives for farmers’ sons?’ What Fuller, in his ‘degenerous gentleman’ says in irony, I would adopt in sober earnest.” _Nescio._ “Well, I perceive we shall get nothing from you to-night, so you may go. But first tell us if you have seen any thing of Apple.”