he pleasant avenue of chestnut-trees that lined the
path from one of the schoolhouse doors, he sought his one retreat and
hermitage,--his loved and bravely defended garden.

That garden was a regular Napoleonic idea. I must tell you about it.

CHAPTER TEN.

IN NAPOLEON'S GARDEN.

One of the rules of Brienne school was that each pupil should know
something about agriculture. To illustrate this study, each one of the
one hundred and fifty boys had a little garden-spot set aside for him to
cultivate and keep in order.

Some of the boys did this from choice, and because they loved to watch
things grow; but many of them were careless, and had no love for fruit
or flowers; so while some of the garden-plots were well kept, others
were neglected.

Napoleon was glad of this garden-plot, for it gave him something which
he could call his own. He cared for it faithfully; but he wished to make
it even more secluded. He remembered his dear grotto at Ajaccio, and
studied over a plan to make his garden-plot just such a real retreat.
But it was not large enough for this. He looked about him. The boys to
whom belonged the garden-plots on either side of him were careless and
neglectful. Their gardens received no attention; they were overgrown
with weeds; their hedges were full of gaps and holes.

"I will take them," said Napoleon; "what one cannot care for, another
must."

So the boy went systematically to work to "annex" his neighbors'
kingdoms, and make from the three plots one ample retreat for himself.
He cut down the separating borders; he trimmed and trained and filled
in the stout outside hedge, until it completely surrounded his enlarged
domain; and, in the centre of the paths and flower-beds and hedges, he
put up a seat and a little summer-bower for his pleasure and protection.

It took some time to get this into shape, of course. When he had
completed it, and was beginning to enjoy it, the owners of the plots
he had confiscated awoke to a sense of their loss and the excellent
garden-spot this young Corsican had made for them. "For of course," they
said, "the garden-plots are ours. Straw Nose has improved them at his
own risk. What he has made we will keep for our own pleasure." So they
attempted to occupy their property; but with Napoleon there was force in
the old saying, "Possession is nine points of the law."

When the dispossessed boys demanded their property, he refused it; when
they spoke of their rights,