saw them, saying: "This is gymnastics; it is quite different from
the _throw your arms forwards_. I want my father to find all this wood
sawed when he gets home; how glad he will be! The worst part of it is
that after sawing I make T's and L's which look like snakes, so the
teacher says. What am I to do? I will tell him that I have to move my
arms about. The important thing is to have mamma get well quickly. She
is better to-day, thank Heaven! I will study my grammar to-morrow
morning at cock-crow. Oh, here's the cart with logs! To work!"

A small cart laden with logs halted in front of the shop. Coretti ran
out to speak to the man, then returned: "I cannot keep your company any
longer now," he said; "farewell until to-morrow. You did right to come
and hunt me up. A pleasant walk to you! happy fellow!"

And pressing my hand, he ran to take the first log, and began once more
to trot back and forth between the cart and the shop, with a face as
fresh as a rose beneath his catskin cap, and so alert that it was a
pleasure to see him.

"Happy fellow!" he had said to me. Ah, no, Coretti, no; you are the
happier, because you study and work too; because you are of use to your
father and your mother; because you are better--a hundred times
better--and more courageous than I, my dear schoolmate.

THE HEAD-MASTER.

Friday, 18th.

Coretti was pleased this morning, because his master of the second
class, Coatti, a big man, with a huge head of curly hair, a great black
beard, big dark eyes, and a voice like a cannon, had come to assist in
the work of the monthly examination. He is always threatening the boys
that he will break them in pieces and carry them by the nape of the neck
to the quaestor, and he makes all sorts of frightful faces; but he never
punishes any one, but always smiles the while behind his beard, so that
no one can see it. There are eight masters in all, including Coatti, and
a little, beardless assistant, who looks like a boy. There is one master
of the fourth class, who is lame and always wrapped up in a big woollen
scarf, and who is always suffering from pains which he contracted when
he was a teacher in the country, in a damp school, where the walls were
dripping with moisture. Another of the teachers of the fourth is old and
perfectly white-haired, and has been a teacher of the blind. There is
one well-dressed master, with eye-glasses, and a blond mustache, who is
called the _little lawyer_, because