before been copied. Richard was first taught by a lame Irishman named
Clough, who kept a school at Tours; and by and by, chiefly for the
children's sake, Colonel Burton gave up Beausejour and took a house in
the Rue De L'Archeveche, the best street in the town. The little Burtons
next attended the academy of a Mr. John Gilchrist, who grounded them in
Latin and Greek. A kind-hearted man, Mr. Gilchrist often gave his
pupils little treats. Once, for instance, he took them to see a woman
guillotined. Richard and Edward were, to use Richard's expression,
"perfect devilets." Nor was the sister an angelet. The boys lied,
fought, beat their maids, generally after running at their petticoats
and upsetting them, smashed windows, stole apple puffs; and their
escapades and Richard's ungovernable temper were the talk of the
neighourhood. Their father was at this time given to boar hunting in
the neighbouring forest, but as he generally damaged himself against the
trees and returned home on a stretcher, he ultimately abandoned himself
again to the equally useful but less perilous pursuit of chemistry.
If Colonel Burton's blowpipes and retorts and his conduct in private
usually kept Mrs. Burton on tenterhooks, she was no less uneasy on his
account when they went into society. He was so apt to call things by
their right names. Thus on one occasion when the conversation ran upon
a certain lady who was known to be unfaithful to her husband, he
inexpressibly shocked a sensitive company by referring to her as "an
adulteress." In this trait, as in many others, his famous son closely
resembled him.

A youthful Stoic, Burton, in times of suffering, invariably took
infinite pains to conceal his feelings. Thus all one day he was in
frightful agony with the toothache, but nobody knew anything about it
until next morning when his cheek was swollen to the size of a peewit's
egg. He tried, too, to smother every affectionate instinct; but when
under strong emotion was not always successful. One day, throwing
stones, he cut his sister's forehead. Forgetting all his noble
resolutions he flew to her, flung his arms round her, kissed her again
and again, and then burst into a fit of crying. Mrs. Burton's way of
dressing her children had the charm of simplicity. She used to buy a
piece of yellow nankin and make up three suits as nearly as possible
alike, except for size. We looked, said Burton, "like three sticks of
barley sugar," and the little French