Besides the two classes we have pointed out under the denomination of gambling and well-conducted scholars, there was still a third, which we shall designate by the name of idle scholars, who scarcely ever left school with the others, whether to play in the square or to return to their paternal homes; seeing that this unfortunate class were almost constantly, what in school language is termed “kept,” which means to say, that while their companions, after having said their lessons and written their themes, were playing at top or eating their bread and jam, they remained nailed to their school benches or before their desks, that they might learn their lessons or write their themes during the hours of recreation, which they had not been able to accomplish satisfactorily during the class, when, indeed, the gravity of their faults did not demand a punishment more severe than that of mere detention, such as the rod, the cane, or the cat-o’-nine-tails.
And had any one followed the path which led into the schoolroom, and which the pupils had just used, in the inverse sense, to get out of it, he would,—after going through a narrow alley, which prudently ran outside of the fruit garden and opened into a large yard which served as a private playground,—he would, as we have said, have heard, on entering this courtyard, a loud harsh voice resounding from the upper part of a staircase, while a scholar, whom our impartiality as historians compels us to acknowledge as belonging to the third class we have mentioned, that is to say, to that of the idle boys, was precipitately descending the said staircase, making just such a movement with his shoulders as asses are wont to do when endeavoring to rid themselves of a cruel rider, or as scholars when they have received a sharp blow from the cat-o’-nine-tails, to alleviate the pain they are enduring.
“Ah! miscreant; ah! you little excommunicated villain,” cried the voice, “ah! you young serpent, away with you, off with you; vade, vade! Remember that for three whole years have I been patient with you; but there are rascals who would tire the patience of even God himself. But now it is all over. I have done with you. Take your squirrels, take your frogs, take your lizards, take your silk-worms, take your cock-chafers, and go to your aunt, go to your uncle if you have one, or to the devil if you will, so that I never more set eyes upon you; vade, vade!”
“Oh, my good Monsieur Fortier, do pray forgive me,” replied the other voice, still upon the staircase and in a supplicating tone; “is it worth your while to put yourself into such a towering passion for a poor little barbarism and a few solecisms, as you call them?”
“Three barbarisms and seven solecisms in a theme of only twenty-five lines!” replied the voice, in a rougher and still more angry tone.
“It has been so to-day, sir, I acknowledge; Thursday is always my unlucky day; but if by chance to-morrow my theme should be well written, would you not forgive me my misfortunes of to-day? Tell me, now, would you not, my good Abbé?”
“On every composition day for the last three years you have repeated that same thing to me, you idle fellow, and the examination is fixed for the first of November, and I, on the entreaty of your aunt Angelique, have had the weakness to put your name down on the list of candidates for the Soissons purse; I shall have the shame of seeing my pupil rejected, and of hearing it everywhere declared that Pitou is an ass,—Angelus Petovius asinus est.”
Let us hasten to say—that the kind-hearted reader may from the first moment feel for him all the interest he deserves—that Ange Pitou, whose name the Abbé Fortier had so picturesquely Latinized, is the hero of this story.
“Oh, my good Monsieur Fortier! oh, my dear master!” replied the scholar, in despair.
“I, your master!” exclaimed the abbé, deeply humiliated by the appellation. “God be thanked, I am no more your master than you are my pupil. I disown you,—I do not know you. I would that I had never seen you. I forbid you to mention my name, or even to bow to me. Retro, miserable boy, retro!”