standing treat all round. Yet,
strange to say, he had such a loathing of meat that soon by special
favoritism a separate dish of eggs and milk and succulent vegetables
was cooked expressly for him--a savory mess that made all our mouths
water merely to see and smell it, and filled us with envy, it was so
good. Aglae the cook took care of that!

"C'etait pour Monsieur Josselin!"

And of this he would eat as much as three ordinary boys could eat of
anything in the world.

Then he was quick-tempered and impulsive, and in frequent fights--in
which he generally came off second best; for he was fond of fighting
with bigger boys than himself. Victor or vanquished, he never bore
malice--nor woke it in others, which is worse. But he would slap a
face almost as soon as look at it, on rather slight provocation, I'm
afraid--especially if it were an inch or two higher up than his own.
And he was fond of showing off, and always wanted to throw farther
and jump higher and run faster than any one else. Not, indeed, that
he ever wished to _mentally_ excel, or particularly admired those
who did!

Also, he was apt to judge folk too much by their mere outward
appearance and manner, and not very fond of dull, ugly, commonplace
people--the very people, unfortunately, who were fondest of him; he
really detested them, almost as much as they detest each other, in
spite of many sterling qualities of the heart and head they
sometimes possess. And yet he was their victim through life--for he
was very soft, and never had the heart to snub the deadliest bores
he ever writhed under, even undeserving ones! Like ----, or ----, or
the Bishop of ----, or Lord Justice ----, or General ----, or
Admiral ----, or the Duke of ----, etc., etc.

And he very unjustly disliked people of the bourgeois type--the
respectable middle class, _quorum pars magna fui_! Especially if we
were very well off and successful, and thought ourselves of some
consequence (as we now very often are, I beg to say), and showed it
(as, I'm afraid, we sometimes do). He preferred the commonest
artisan to M. Jourdain, the bourgeois gentilhomme, who was a very
decent fellow, after all, and at least clean in his habits, and
didn't use bad language or beat his wife!

Poor dear Barty! what would have become of all those priceless
copyrights and royalties and what not if his old school-fellow
hadn't been a man of business? And where would Barty himself have
been without his wife, who c