Part 4

He gave the boy a friendly pat on the cheek and left the room.

Josselin walked to his desk and sat down, between d'Adhémar and Laferté, both of whom were en cinquième. He pulled a Cæsar out of his desk and tried to read it. He became an object of passionate interest to the whole school-room, till M. Bonzig said:

"The first who lifts his eyes from his desk to stare at 'le nouveau' shall be au piquet for half an hour!" (To be au piquet is to stand with your back to a tree for part of the following play-time; and the play-time which was to follow would last just thirty minutes.)

Presently I looked up, in spite of piquet, and caught the new boy's eye, which was large and blue and soft, and very sad and sentimental, and looked as if he were thinking of his mammy, as I did constantly of mine during my first week at Brossard's, three years before.

Soon, however, that sad eye slowly winked at me, with an expression so droll that I all but laughed aloud.

Then its owner felt in the inner breast pocket of his Eton jacket with great care, and delicately drew forth by the tail a very fat white mouse, that seemed quite tame, and ran up his arm to his wide shirt collar, and tried to burrow there; and the boys began to interest themselves breathlessly in this engaging little quadruped.

M. Bonzig looked up again, furious; but his spectacles had grown misty from the heat and he couldn't see, and he wiped them; and meanwhile the mouse was quickly smuggled back to its former nest.

Josselin drew a large clean pocket-handkerchief from his trousers and buried his head in his desk, and there was silence.

"La!--ré, fa!--la!--ré"--

So strummed, over and over again, poor Chardonnet in his remote parlor--he was getting tired.

I have heard "L'Invitation à la Valse" many hundreds of times since then, and in many countries, but never that bar without thinking of Josselin and his little white mouse.

"Fermez votre pupitre, Josselin," said M. Bonzig, after a few minutes.

Josselin shut his desk and beamed genially at the usher.

"What book have you got there, Josselin--Cæsar or Cornelius Nepos?"

Josselin held the book with its title-page open for M. Bonzig to read.

"Are you dumb, Josselin? Can't you speak?"

Josselin tried to speak, but uttered no sound.

"Josselin, come here--opposite me."

Josselin came and stood opposite M. Bonzig and made a nice little bow.

"What have you got in your mouth, Josselin--chocolate?--barley-sugar?--caoutchouc?--or an India-rubber ball?"

Josselin shrugged his shoulders and looked pensive, but spoke never a word.

"Open quick the mouth, Josselin!"

And Monsieur Bonzig, leaning over the table, deftly put his thumb and forefinger between the boy's lips, and drew forth slowly a large white pocket-handkerchief, which seemed never to end, and threw it on the floor with solemn dignity.

The whole school-room was convulsed with laughter.

"Josselin--leave the room--you will be severely punished, as you deserve--you are a vulgar buffoon--a jo-crisse--a paltoquet, a mountebank! Go, petit polisson--go!"

The polisson picked up his pocket-handkerchief and went--quite quietly, with simple manly grace; and that's the first I ever saw of Barty Josselin--and it was some fifty years ago.

* * * * *

At 3.30 the bell sounded for the half-hour's recreation, and the boys came out to play.