s of his dawning moustache:

'Yes,' he says, 'that's it. The long leg is open at the top. There, I
can feel the hole.'

And Bastien, to confirm his mendacious statement, keeps wriggling
his forefinger at the top of the tube, while his fellow-conspirators
suppress their enjoyment as best they can.

'That will do,' says the unconscious abbe. 'You can get down, Bastien.
Take a note of it, boys: the longer leg of the barometer is open; take a
note of it. It's a thing you might forget; I had forgotten it myself.'

Thus was physics taught. Things improved, however: a master came and
came to stay, one who knew that the long leg of the barometer is closed.
I myself secured tables on which my pupils were able to write instead
of scribbling on their knees; and, as my class was daily increasing
in numbers, it ended by being divided into two. As soon as I had an
assistant to look after the younger boys, things assumed a different
aspect.

Among the subjects taught, one in particular appealed to both masters
and pupils. This was open-air geometry, practical surveying. The college
had none of the necessary outfit; but, with my fat pay--seven hundred
francs a year, if you please!--I could not hesitate over the expense.
A surveyor's chain and stakes, arrows, level, square and compass were
bought with my money. A microscopic graphometer, not much larger than
the palm of one's hand and costing perhaps five francs, was provided
by the establishment. There was no tripod to it; and I had one made. In
short, my equipment was complete.

And so, when May came, once every week we left the gloomy school-room
for the fields. It was a regular holiday. The boys disputed for the
honour of carrying the stakes, divided into bundles of three; and more
than one shoulder, as we walked through the town, felt the reflected
glory of those erudite rods. I myself--why conceal the fact?--was not
without a certain satisfaction as I piously carried that most delicate
and precious apparatus, the historic five-franc graphometer. The scene
of operations was an untilled, flinty plain, a harmas, as we call it in
the district. (Cf. "The Life of the Fly", by J. Henri Fabre, translated
by Alexander Teixeira de Mattos: chapter 1.--Translator's Note.) Here,
no curtain of green hedges or shrubs prevented me from keeping an
eye upon my staff; here--an indispensable condition--I had not the
irresistible temptation of the unripe apricots to fear for my scholars.
The pl