little girl whom I had kissed the week before. She
stopped her hoop and stood in my way, staring with wideopen eyes and a
coaxing, cunning look, which meant, "I know you, I do!" I passed by
without noticing. She pouted her lip, and I saw that she was thinking,
"What's the matter with him?"

What was the matter? My poor little golden-locks, when you are grown a
fair woman I trust you may know as little of it as you do to-day.

I went up the Rue Soufliot, and entered the stuffy courtyard on the
stroke of noon.

The morning lectures were over. Beneath the arcades a few scattered
students were walking up and down. I avoided them for fear of meeting a
friend and having to talk. Several professors came running from their
lunch, rather red in the face, at the summons of the secretary. These
were my examiners.

It was time to get into costume, for the candidate, like the criminal,
has his costume. The old usher, who has dressed me up I don't know how
many times in his hired gowns, saw that I was downcast, and thought I
must be suffering from examination fever, a peculiar malady, which is
like what a young soldier feels the first time he is under fire.

We were alone in the dark robing-room; he walked round me, brushing and
encouraging me; doctors of law have a moral right to this touch of the
brush.

"It will be all right, Monsieur Mouillard, never fear. No one has been
refused a degree this morning."

"I am not afraid, Michu."

"When I say 'no one,' there was one refused--you never heard the like.
Just imagine--a little to the right, please, Monsieur Mouillard--imagine,
I say, a candidate who knew absolutely nothing. That is nothing
extraordinary. But this fellow, after the examination was over,
recommended himself to mercy. 'Have compassion on me, gentlemen,' he
said, 'I only wish to be a magistrate!' Capital, isn't it?"

"Yes, yes."

"You don't seem to think so. You don't look like laughing this morning."

"No, Michu, every one has his bothers, you know."

"I said to myself as I looked at you just now, Monsieur Mouillard has
some bother. Button up all the way, if you please, for a doctor's essay;
if-you-please. It's a heartache, then?"

"Something of the kind."

He shrugged his shoulders and went before me, struggling with an
asthmatic chuckle, until we came to the room set apart for the
examination.

It was the smallest and darkest of all, and borrowed its light from a
street which had little enough to