ped.
Another rolled headlong down the stairs, when descending again to the
pit: cries arose, but he had not hurt himself. Boys of all sorts
passed,--boys with roguish faces, with frightened faces, with faces as
red as cherries; comical little fellows, who laughed in every one's
face: and no sooner had they got back into the pit, than they were
seized upon by their fathers and mothers, who carried them away.

When our schoolhouse's turn came, how amused I was! Many whom I knew
passed. Coretti filed by, dressed in new clothes from head to foot, with
his fine, merry smile, which displayed all his white teeth; but who
knows how many myriagrammes of wood he had already carried that morning!
The mayor, on presenting him with his certificate, inquired the meaning
of a red mark on his forehead, and as he did so, laid one hand on his
shoulder. I looked in the pit for his father and mother, and saw them
laughing, while they covered their mouths with one hand. Then Derossi
passed, all dressed in bright blue, with shining buttons, with all those
golden curls, slender, easy, with his head held high, so handsome, so
sympathetic, that I could have blown him a kiss; and all the gentlemen
wanted to speak to him and to shake his hand.

Then the master cried, "Giulio Robetti!" and we saw the captain's son
come forward on his crutches. Hundreds of boys knew the occurrence; a
rumor ran round in an instant; a salvo of applause broke forth, and of
shouts, which made the theatre tremble: men sprang to their feet, the
ladies began to wave their handkerchiefs, and the poor boy halted in the
middle of the stage, amazed and trembling. The mayor drew him to him,
gave him his prize and a kiss, and removing the two laurel crowns which
were hanging from the back of the chair, he strung them on the
cross-bars of his crutches. Then he accompanied him to the proscenium
box, where his father, the captain, was seated; and the latter lifted
him bodily and set him down inside, amid an indescribable tumult of
bravos and hurrahs.

Meanwhile, the soft and gentle music of the violins continued, and the
boys continued to file by,--those from the Schoolhouse della Consolata,
nearly all the sons of petty merchants; those from the Vanchiglia
School, the sons of workingmen; those from the Boncompagni School, many
of whom were the sons of peasants; those of the Rayneri, which was the
last. As soon as it was over, the seven hundred boys in the pit sang
another very