e. He heard me perfectly, but took no notice
whatever, the deceitful little beast. He was to have given up _Monte
Cristo_ to me at half-past two, and here it was twenty minutes to three!
Besides which, it was _my Monte Cristo_, bought with my own small
savings, and smuggled into school by me at great risk to myself.

"Maurice!" said M. Bonzig.

"Oui, m'sieur!" said I. I will translate:

"You shall conjugate and copy out for me forty times the compound
verb, 'I cough without necessity to distract the attention of my
comrade Rapaud from his Latin exercise!'"

"Moi, m'sieur?" I ask, innocently.

"Oui, vous!"

"Bien, m'sieur!"

Just then there was a clatter by the fountain, and the shrill small
pipe of D'Aurigny, the youngest boy in the school, exclaimed:

"He! He! Oh la la! Le Roi qui passe!"

[Illustration: THE NEW BOY]

And we all jumped up, and stood on forms, and craned our necks to see
Louis Philippe I. and his Queen drive quickly by in their big blue
carriage and four, with their two blue-and-silver liveried outriders
trotting in front, on their way from St.-Cloud to the Tuileries.

"Sponde! Selancy! fermez les fenetres, ou je vous mets tous au pain
sec pour un mois!" thundered M. Bonzig, who did not approve of kings
and queens--an appalling threat which appalled nobody, for when he
forgot to forget he always relented; for instance, he quite forgot
to insist on that formidable compound verb of mine.

Suddenly the door of the school-room flew open, and the tall, portly
figure of Monsieur Brossard appeared, leading by the wrist a very
fair-haired boy of thirteen or so, dressed in an Eton jacket and
light blue trousers, with a white chimney-pot silk hat, which he
carried in his hand--an English boy, evidently; but of an aspect so
singularly agreeable one didn't need to be English one's self to
warm towards him at once.

"Monsieur Bonzig, and gentlemen!" said the head master (in French,
of course). "Here is the new boy; he calls himself Bartholomiou
Josselin. He is English, but he knows French as well as you. I hope
you will find in him a good comrade, honorable and frank and brave,
and that he will find the same in you.--Maurice!" (that was me).

"Oui, m'sieur!"

"I specially recommend Josselin to you."

"Moi, m'sieur?"

"Yes, _you_; he is of your age, and one of your compatriots. Don't
forget."

"Bien, m'sieur."

"And now, Josselin, take that vacant desk, which will be yours
henceforth. You w