nd for it a comfortable home in an old
bonbon-box lined with blue satin, where it had a large family and
fed on the best, and lived happily ever after.

But things did not go smoothly for Josselin all that Saturday
afternoon. When Bonzig left, the boys gathered round "le nouveau,"
large and small, and asked questions. And just before the bell
sounded for French literature, I saw him defending himself with his
two British fists against Dugit, a big boy with whiskers, who had
him by the collar and was kicking him to rights. It seems that Dugit
had called him, in would-be English, "Pretty voman," and this had so
offended him that he had hit the whiskered one straight in the eye.

Then French literature for the _quatrieme_ till six; then dinner for
all--soup, boiled beef (not salt), lentils; and Gruyere cheese,
quite two ounces each; then French rounders till half past seven;
then lesson preparation (with _Monte Cristos_ in one's lap, or
_Mysteries of Paris_, or _Wandering Jews_) till nine.

Then, ding-dang-dong, and, at the sleepy usher's nod, a sleepy boy
would rise and recite the perfunctory evening prayer in a dull
singsong voice--beginning, "Notre Pere, qui etes aux cieux, vous
dont le regard scrutateur penetre jusque dans les replis les plus
profonds de nos coeurs," etc., etc., and ending, "au nom du Pere,
du Fils, et du St. Esprit, ainsi soit-il!"

And then, bed--Josselin in my dormitory, but a long way off, between
d'Adhemar and Laferte; while Palaiseau snorted and sniffed himself
to sleep in the bed next mine, and Rapaud still tried to read the
immortal works of the elder Dumas by the light of a little oil-lamp
six yards off, suspended from a nail in the blank wall over the
chimney-piece.

* * * * *

[Illustration: A LITTLE PEACE-MAKER]

The Institution F. Brossard was a very expensive private school,
just twice as expensive as the most expensive of the Parisian public
schools--Ste.-Barbe, Francois Premier, Louis-le-Grand, etc.

These great colleges, which were good enough for the sons of Louis
Philippe, were not thought good enough for me by my dear mother, who
was Irish, and whose only brother had been at Eton, and was now
captain in an English cavalry regiment--so she had aristocratic
notions. It used to be rather an Irish failing in those days.

My father, James Maurice, also English (and a little Scotch), and by
no means an aristocrat, was junior partner in the great f