rcastically,
drawing back, and pushing the speaker to the front; "hear him."

"Oh, now, Napoleon! don't object," young Alexander des Mazes said. "Did
you not hear why d'Hebonville proposed the supper? It is to honor the
German teacher's birthday."

"Oh, he heard it fast enough, des Mazes," rejoined d'Hebonville. "That
is what makes him so cross."

"Why do you say that?" Napoleon demanded.

"You do not like the plan because it is to honor old Bauer; for you do
not like him," d'Hebonville replied. "If, now, it were a supper to the
history teacher, you would agree, I am sure. For de l'Equille praises
you on 'the profundity of your reflections and the sagacity of your
judgment.' Oh, I've read his notes; or you would agree if it were
Domaisen, the rhetoric teacher, who is much impressed--those are
his very words, are they not, gentlemen?--with 'your powers of
generalization, which' he says, are even 'as granite heated at a
volcano.' But as it is only dear old Bauer"--and d'Hebonville shrugged
his shoulders significantly. "Well, and what about 'dear old Bauer,' as
you call him?" cried Napoleon; "finish, sir; finish, I say."

"I will tell you what Father Bauer says of you, Napoleon," said des
Mazes laughingly, as he laid his arm familiarly about Napoleon's neck;
"he says he does not think much of you, because you make no progress in
your German; and as old Bauer thinks the world moves only for Germans,
he has nothing good to say of one who makes no mark in his dear
language. 'Ach!' says old Bauer, 'your Napoleon Bonaparte will never be
anything but a fool. He knows no German.'"

The boys laughed loudly at des Mazes's mimicry of the German teacher's
manner and speech. But Napoleon smiled with the air of one who felt
himself superior to the teacher of German.

"Now, I should say," said Philip Mabille, "that here is the very reason
why Napoleon should not refuse to join us. It will be--what are the
words?--'heaping coals of fire' on old Bauer's head."

"That might be so," Napoleon agreed, in a better humor. "But why give
him a feast? Let us--I'll tell you--let us give him a spectacle. A
battle, perhaps."

"In which you should be a general, I suppose, as you were in that
snow--ball fight at Brienne, of which we have heard once or twice," said
d'Hebonville sarcastically.

"And why not?" asked Napoleon haughtily.

"Or the death of Caesar, like the tableaux we arranged at Brienne,"
suggested Demetrius Comneno enthusiast