o conceal my feelings," said
Napoleon; "but it does seem as if the boys here delighted in making me
feel my poverty. They live in an insolent luxury; and whoever cannot
imitate them,"--here Napoleon dashed a hand to his forehead,--"Oh, it is
to die of humiliation!"

"At your age, my Napoleon, one submits and blames no one," said Monsieur
Permon, smiling, in spite of himself, at the boy's desperation.

"At my age' yes, sir," Napoleon rejoined, as if keeping back some
great thought. "But later--ah, if, some day, I should ever be master!
However"--and the French shrug that is so eloquent completed the
sentence.

"However,"--Monsieur Permon took up his words--"while waiting, one may
now and then find a friend. And you take your part here with the boys,
do you not?"

Napoleon was silent; and Monsieur Permon, remembering the trouble that
had weighed Eliza down, concluded also that some such trial might be a
part of Napoleon's school-life.

"Let me help you, my boy," he said.

At this unexpected proposition Napoleon flushed deeply; then the red
tinge paled into the sallow one again, and he responded, "I thank you,
sir, but I do not need it."

"Napoleon," said Monsieur Permon, "your mother is my wife's dearest
friend; your father has long been my good comrade. Is it right for
sons to refuse the love of their fathers, or for boys to reject the
friendships of their elders? Pride is excellent; but even pride may
sometimes be pernicious. It is pride that sets a barrier between you and
your companions. Do not permit it. Regard friendship as of more value
than self-consideration; and, for my sake, let me help you to join in
these occasions that may mean so much to you in the way of friendship."

Thus deftly did good Monseiur Permon smooth over the bitterness that
inequality in pocket allowances so often stirs between those who have
little and those who have much.

Napoleon fixed upon his father's friend one of his piercing looks, and
taking his proffered money, said:--

"I accept it, sir, as if it came from my father, as you wish me to
consider it. But if it came as a loan, I could not receive it. My people
have too many charges already; and I ought not to increase them by
expenses which, as is often the case here, are put upon me by the folly
of my schoolfellows."

The Permons proved good friends to the Bonaparte children; and it
was to their house at Montpellier that, in the spring of 1785, Charles
Bonaparte was brou