m no other rival
in the corruption of youth than the infamous Thwackum.

It is not every scholar's ambition to teach the elements, and Rosselot
adopted his modest calling as a cloak of crime. No sooner was he
installed in a mansion than he became the mansion's master, and
henceforth he ruled his employer's domain with the tyrannical severity
of a Grand Inquisitor. His soul wrapped in the triple brass of
arrogance, he even dared to lay his hands upon food before his betters
were served; and presently, emboldened by success, he would order the
dinners, reproach the cook with a too lavish use of condiments, and
descend with insolent expostulation into the kitchen. In a week he had
opened the cupboards upon a dozen skeletons, and made them rattle their
rickety bones up and down the draughty staircases, until the inmates
shivered with horror and the terrified neighbours fled the haunted
castle as a lazar-house. Once in possession of a family secret, he felt
himself secure, and henceforth he was free to browbeat his employer and
to flog his pupil to the satisfaction of his waspish nature. Moreover,
he was endowed with all the insight and effrontery of a trained
journalist. So sedulous was he in his search after the truth, that
neither man nor woman could deny him confidence. And, as vinegar flowed
in his veins for blood, it was his merry sport to set wife against
husband and children against father. Not even were the servants
safe from his watchful inquiry, and housemaids and governesses alike
entrusted their hopes and fears to his malicious keeping. And when the
house had retired to rest, with what a sinister delight did he chuckle
over the frailties and infamies, a guilty knowledge of which he had
dragged from many an unwilling sinner! To oust him, when installed, was
a plain impossibility, for this wringer of hearts was only too glib
in the surrender of another's scandal; and as he accepted the last
scurrility with Christian resignation, his unfortunate employer could
but strengthen his vocabulary and patiently endure the presence of this
smiling, demoniacal tutor.

But a too villainous curiosity was not the Abbe's capital sin.

Not only did he entertain his leisure with wrecking the happiness of a
united family, but he was an enemy open and declared of France. It
was his amiable pastime at the dinner-table, when he had first helped
himself to such delicacies as tempted his dainty palate, to pronounce
a pompous eulogy u