me into the school-room, and
told us he should go the round of the boys there and then, and ask
each boy separately to own up if it were he who had uttered the
seditious cry.

"And mind you!" he said--"you are all and each of you on your 'word
of honor'--_l'etude entiere_!"

So round he went, from boy to boy, deliberately fixing each boy with
his eye, and severely asking--"Est-ce _toi_?" "Est-ce _toi_?"
"Est-ce _toi_?" etc., and waiting very deliberately indeed for the
answer, and even asking for it again if it were not given in a firm
and audible voice. And the answer was always, "Non, m'sieur, ce
n'est pas moi!"

But when he came to each of _us_ (Josselin and me) he just mumbled
his "Est-ce toi?" in a quite perfunctory voice, and didn't even wait
for the answer!

When he got to the last boy of all, who said "Non, m'sieur," like
all the rest, he left the room, saying, tragically (and, as I
thought, rather theatrically for _him_):

"Je m'en vais le coeur navre--il y a un lache parmi vous!" (My heart
is harrowed--there's a coward among you.)

There was an awkward silence for a few moments.

Presently Rapaud got up and went out. We all knew that Rapaud was
the delinquent--he had bragged about it so--overnight in the
dormitory. He went straight to M. Merovee and confessed, stating
that he did not like to be put on his word of honor before the whole
school. I forget whether he was punished or not, or how. He had to
make his apologies to M. Dumollard, of course.

To put the whole school on its word of honor was thought a very
severe measure, coming as it did from the head master in person. "La
parole d'honneur" was held to be very sacred between boy and boy,
and even between boy and head master. The boy who broke it was
always "mis a la quarantaine" (sent to Coventry) by the rest of the
school.

"I wonder why he let off Josselin and Maurice so easily?" said
Jolivet, at breakfast.

"Parce qu'il aime les Anglais, ma foi!" said M. Dumollard--"affaire
de gout!"

"Ma foi, il n'a pas tort!" said M. Bonzig.

Dumollard looked askance at Bonzig (between whom and himself not
much love was lost) and walked off, jauntily twirling his mustache,
and whistling a few bars of a very ungainly melody, to which the
words ran:

"Non! jamais en France,
Jamais Anglais ne regnera!"

As if we wanted to, good heavens!

(By-the-way, I suddenly remember that both Berquin and d'Orthez were
let off as easily as Josselin a