feet by his mirific parent. The time came when, if he was not
dressed in his tiny woollen jersey and knee breeches and had not his
nose glued against the parlour window in readiness to scramble to the
front door for Aristide's morning kiss, he would have thought that
chaos had come again. And Anne, humouring the child, hastened to get
him washed and dressed in time; until at last, so greatly was she
affected by his obsession, she got into the foolish habit of watching
the clock and saying to herself: "In another minute he will be here,"
or: "He is a minute late. What can have happened to him?"

So Aristide, in his childlike way, found remarkable happiness in
Beverly Stoke. A very wet summer had been followed by a dry and mellow
autumn. Aristide waxed enthusiastic over the English climate and
rejoiced in the mild country air. He was also happy under my friend
Blessington, who spoke of him to me in glowing terms. At the back of
all Aristide's eccentricities was the Provencal peasant's shrewdness.
He realized that, for the first time in his life, he had taken up a
sound and serious avocation. Also, he was no longer irresponsible. He
had found little Jean. Jean's future was in his hands. Jean was to be
an architect--God knows why--but Aristide settled it, definitely,
off-hand. He would have to be educated. "And, my dear friend," said
he, when we were discussing Jean--and for months I heard nothing but
Jean, Jean, Jean, so that I loathed the brat, until I met the
brown-skinned, black-eyed, merry little wretch and fell, like
everybody else, fatuously in love with him--"my dear friend," said he,
"an architect, to be the architect that I mean him to be, must have
universal knowledge. He must know the first word of the classic, the
last word of the modern. He must be steeped in poetry, his brain must
vibrate with science. He must be what you call in England a gentleman.
He must go to one of your great public schools--Eton, Winchester,
Rugby, Harrow--you see I know them all--he must go to Cambridge or
Oxford. Ah, I tell you, he is to be a big man. I, Aristide Pujol, did
not pick him up on that deserted road, in the Arabia Petrea of
Provence, between Salon and Arles, for nothing. He was wrapped, as I
have told you, in an old blanket--and _ma foi_ it smelt bad--and I
dressed him in my pyjamas and made a Neapolitan cap for him out of one
of my socks. The _bon Dieu_ sent him, and I shall arrange just as the
_bon Dieu_ intended. Poor