ll-regulated
life, always treated him with great consideration, for faults
of behaviour almost cease to shock us except among neighbours,
or at most fellow-countrymen. Without knowing it, Jean found a
fund of amusement in the witticisms and harangues of his old
teacher, who united in himself the contradictory attributes of
high-priest and buffoon. He was great at telling a story, and
though his tales were beyond the child's intelligence, they did
not fail to leave behind a confused impression of recklessness,
irony, and cynicism. Mademoiselle Servien alone never relaxed her
attitude of uncompromising dislike and disdain. She said nothing
against him, but her face was a rigid mask of disapproval, her
eyes two flames of fire, in answer to the courteous greeting
the tutor never failed to offer her with a special roll of his
little grey eyes.

One day the Marquis Tudesco walked into the shop with a staggering
gait; his eyes glittered and his mouth hung half open in anticipation
of racy talk and self-indulgence, while his great nose, his pink
cheeks, his fat, loose hands and his big belly, gallantly carried,
gave him, beneath his jacket and felt hat, a perfect likeness to
a little rustic god his ancestors worshipped, the old Silenus.

Lessons that day were fitful and haphazard. Jean was repeating
in a drawling voice: _moneo, mones, monet ... monebam, monebas,
monebat..._ Suddenly Monsieur Tudesco sprang forward, dragging
his chair along the floor with a horrid screech, and clapping
his hand on his pupil's shoulder:

"Child," he said, "to-day I am going to give you a more profitable
lesson than all the pitiful teaching I have confined myself to
up to now.

"It is a lesson of transcendental philosophy. Hearken carefully,
child. If one day you rise above your station and come to know
yourself and the world about you, you will discover this, that
men act only out of regard for the opinion of their fellows--and
_per Bacco!_ they are consummate fools for their pains. They
dread other folks' blame and crave their approval.

"The idiots fail to see that the world does not care a straw
for them, and that their dearest friends will see them glorified
or disgraced without missing one mouthful of their dinner. This
is my lesson, _caro figliuolo_, that the world's opinion is not
worth the sacrifice of a single one of our desires. If you get
this into your pate, you will be a strong man and can boast you
were once the pupil of th