ermany they could endure at all! But whether
in Paris or London, enter Barty Josselin, idle school-boy, or dandy
dissipated guardsman, and fashionable man about town, or bohemian
art student; and Bach, lebewohl! good-bye, Beethoven! bonsoir le bon
Mozart! all was changed: and welcome, instead, the last comic song
from the Chateau des Fleurs, or Evans's in Covent Garden; the latest
patriotic or sentimental ditty by Loisa Puget, or Frederic Berat, or
Eliza Cook, or Mr. Henry Russell.

And then, what would Barty like for breakfast, dinner, supper after
the play, and which of all those burgundies would do Barty good
without giving him a headache next morning? and where was Barty to
have his smoke?--in the library, of course. "Light the fire in the
library, Mary; and Mr. Bob [that was me] can smoke there, too,
instead of going outside," etc., etc., etc. It is small wonder that
he grew a bit selfish at times.

Though I was a little joyous now and then, it is quite without a
shadow of bitterness or envy that I write all this. I have lived for
fifty years under the charm of that genial, unconscious,
irresistible tyranny; and, unlike my dear parents, I have lived to
read and know Barty Josselin, nor merely to see and hear and love
him for himself alone.

Indeed, it was quite impossible to know Barty at all intimately and
not do whatever he wanted you to do. Whatever he wanted, he wanted
so intensely, and at once; and he had such a droll and engaging way
of expressing that hurry and intensity, and especially of expressing
his gratitude and delight when what he wanted was what he got--that
you could not for the life of you hold your own! Tout vient a qui ne
sait pas attendre!

Besides which, every now and then, if things didn't go quite as he
wished, he would fly into comic rages, and become quite violent and
intractable for at least five minutes, and for quite five minutes
more he would silently sulk. And then, just as suddenly, he would
forget all about it, and become once more the genial, affectionate,
and caressing creature he always was.

But this is going ahead too fast! revenons. At the examinations this
year Barty was almost brilliant, and I was hopeless as usual; my
only consolation being that after the holidays we should at last be
in the same class together, _en quatrieme_, and all through this
hopelessness of mine!

Laferte was told by his father that he might invite two of his
school-fellows to their country-