the room. "My
master will soon be here."

But Daddy Tantaine refused the offer, saying that he did not wish to
intrude, but would wait until the lesson was over.

"I have nearly finished," remarked Poluche; "it is almost time to let
these scamps have their soup."

Then turning to his pupils, who had not dared to stir a limb, he said,--

"There, that is enough for to-day; you can go."

The children did not hesitate for a moment, but tumbled over each other
in their eagerness to get away, hoping, perhaps, that he might omit to
execute certain threats that he had held out during the lesson. The hope
was a vain one, for the equitable Poluche went to the head of the stairs
and called out in a loud voice,--

"Mother Butor, you will give no soup to Monte and put Ravillet on half
allowance."

Tantaine was much interested, for the scene was an entirely new one.

The professor raised his eyes to heaven.

"Would," said he, "that I might teach them the divine science as I would
wish; but the master would not allow me; indeed, he would dismiss me if
I attempted to do so."

"I do not understand you."

"Let me explain to you. You know that there are certain old women who,
for a consideration, will train a linnet or a bullfinch to whistle any
air?"

Tantaine, with all humility, confessed his ignorance of these matters.

"Well," said the professor, "the only difference between those old women
and myself is, that they teach birds and I boys; and I know which I had
rather do."

Tantaine pointed to the whip.

"And how about this?" asked he.

Poluche shrugged his shoulders.

"Put yourself in my place for a little while," remarked he. "You see my
master brings me all sorts of boys, and I have to cram music into them
in the briefest period possible. Of course the child revolts, and I
thrash him; but do not think he cares for this; the young imps thrive on
blows. The only way that I can touch them is through their stomachs. I
stop a quarter, a half, and sometimes the whole of their dinner. That
fetches them, and you have no idea how a little starvation brings them
on in music."

Daddy Tantaine felt a cold shiver creep over him as he listened to this
frank exposition of the professor's mode of action.

"You can now understand," remarked the professor, "how some airs become
popular in Paris. I have forty pupils all trying the same thing. I am
drilling them now in the _Marguerite_, and in a little time you will
have noth