A luncheon of many courses had been provided for Rafael Mendoza at his
inn; but he smiled at the clumsy efforts of the university cooks to
entertain him, and a couple of dates and a glass of water formed his
meal. In vain the discomfited landlord pressed him to partake of the
slighted banquet. "A breakfast! psha!" said he. "My good man, I have
nineteen cooks, at salaries rising from four hundred a year. I can have
a dinner at any hour; but a Town and Gown row" (a brickbat here flying
through the window crashed the caraffe of water in Mendoza's hand)--"a
Town and Gown row is a novelty to me. The Town has the best of it,
clearly, though: the men outnumber the lads. Ha, a good blow! How that
tall townsman went down before yonder slim young fellow in the scarlet
trencher cap."
"That is the Lord Codlingsby," the landlord said.
"A light weight, but a pretty fighter," Mendoza remarked. "Well hit with
your left, Lord Codlingsby; well parried, Lord Codlingsby; claret drawn,
by Jupiter!"
"Ours is werry fine," the landlord said. "Will your Highness have
Chateau Margaux or Lafitte?"
"He never can be going to match himself against that bargeman!" Rafael
exclaimed, as an enormous boatman--no other than Rullock--indeed, the
most famous bruiser of Cambridge, and before whose fists the Gownsmen
went down like ninepins--fought his way up to the spot where, with
admirable spirit and resolution, Lord Codlingsby and one or two of his
friends were making head against a number of the town.
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