am that I go back to school, to get coached by
Dumollard in a little more algebra. I wander about the playground;
but all the boys are new, and don't even know my name; and silent,
sad, and ugly, every one! Again Dumollard persecutes me. And in the
middle of it I reflect that, after all, he is a person of no
importance whatever, and that I am a member of the British
Parliament--a baronet--a millionaire--and one of her Majesty's Privy
Councillors! and that M. Dumollard must be singularly "out of it,"
even for a Frenchman, not to be aware of this.

"If he only knew!" says I to myself, says I--in my dream.

Besides, can't the man see with his own eyes that I'm grown up, and
big enough to tuck him under my left arm, and spank him just as if
he were a little naughty boy--confound the brute!

Then, suddenly:

"Maurice, au piquet pour une heure!"

"Moi, m'sieur?"

"Oui, vous!"

"Pourquoi, m'sieur!"

"Parce que ca me plait!"

And I wake--and could almost weep to find how old I am!

And Barty Josselin is no more--oh! my God! ... and his dear wife
survived him just twenty-four hours!

* * * * *

Behold us both "en Philosophie!"

And Barty the head boy of the school, though not the oldest--and the
brilliant show-boy of the class.

Just before Easter (1851) he and I and Rapaud and Laferte and
Jolivet trois (who was nineteen) and Palaiseau and Bussy-Rabutin
went up for our "bachot" at the Sorbonne.

We sat in a kind of big musty school-room with about thirty other
boys from other schools and colleges. There we sat side by side from
ten till twelve at long desks, and had a long piece of Latin
dictated to us, with the punctuation in French: "un point--point et
virgule--deux points--point d'exclamation--guillemets--ouvrez la
parenthese," etc., etc.--monotonous details that enervate one at
such a moment!

Then we set to work with our dictionaries and wrote out a
translation according to our lights--a _pion_ walking about and
watching us narrowly for cribs, in case we should happen to have one
for this particular extract, which was most unlikely.

Barty's nose bled, I remember--and this made him nervous.

Then we went and lunched at the Cafe de l'Odeon, on the best omelet
we had ever tasted.

"Te rappelles-tu cette omelette?" said poor Barty to me only last
Christmas as ever was!

Then we went back with our hearts in our mouths to find if we had
qualified ourselves by our "versi