The Martian. George du Maurier

went to Yorkshire with the Rohans, and I spent most of my holidays with my mother and sister (and the beautiful Miss———) at Mademoiselle Jalabert's, next door—coming back to school for most of my meals, and at

       "TOO MUCH 'MONTE CRISTO,' I'M AFRAID"

      night to sleep, with a whole dormitory to myself, and no dreadful bell at five in the morning; and so much time to spare that I never found any leisure for my holiday task, that skeleton at the feast; no more did Jules, the sergeant's son; no more did Caillard, who spent his vacation at Brossard's because his parents lived in Russia, and his "correspondant" in Paris was ill.

      The only master who remained behind was Bonzig, who passed his time painting ships and sailors, in oil‑colors; it was a passion with him: corvettes, brigantines, British whalers, fishing‑smacks, revenue‑cutters, feluccas, caïques, even Chinese junks—all was fish that came to his net. He got them all from La France Maritime, an illustrated periodical much in vogue at Brossard's; and also his storms and his calms, his rocks and piers and light‑houses—for he had never seen the sea he was so fond of. He took us every morning to the Passy swimming‑baths, and in the afternoon for long walks in Paris, and all about and around, and especially to the Musée de Marine at the Louvre, that we might gaze with him at the beautiful models of three‑deckers.

      He evidently pitied our forlorn condition, and told us delightful stories about seafaring life, like Mr. Clark Russell's; and how he, some day, hoped to see the ocean for himself before he died—and with his own eyes.

      I really don't know how Jules and Caillard would have got through the hideous ennui of that idle September without him. Even I, with my mother and sister and the beautiful Miss———within such easy reach, found time hang heavily at times. One can't be always reading, even Alexandre Dumas; nor always loafing about, even in Paris, by one's self (Jules and Caillard were not allowed outside the gates without Bonzig); and beautiful English girls of eighteen, like Miss———s, don't always want a small boy dangling after them, and show it sometimes; which I thought very hard.

      It was almost a relief when school began again in October, and the boys came back with their wonderful stories of the good time they had all had (especially some of the big boys, who were "en rhétorique et en philosophie")—and all the game that had fallen to their guns—wild‑boars, roebucks, cerfs‑dix‑cors, and what not; of perilous swims in stormy seas—tremendous adventures in fishing‑smacks on moonlight nights (it seemed that the moon had been at the full all through those wonderful six weeks); rides ventre à terre on mettlesome Arab steeds through gloomy wolf‑haunted forests with charming female cousins; flirtations and "good fortunes" with beautiful but not happily married women in old mediæval castle keeps. Toujours au clair de la lune! They didn't believe each other in the least, these gay young romancers—nor expect to be believed themselves; but it was very exciting all the same; and they listened, and were listened to in turn, without a gesture of incredulity—nor even a smile! And we small boys held our tongues in reverence and awe.

      When Josselin came back he had wondrous things to tell too—but so preposterous that they disbelieved him quite openly, and told him so. How in London he had seen a poor woman so tipsy in the street that she had to be carried away by two policemen on a stretcher. How he had seen brewers' dray‑horses nearly six feet high at the shoulder—and one or two of them with a heavy cavalry mustache drooping from its upper lip.

      How he had been presented to the Lord Mayor of London, and even shaken hands with him, in Leadenhall Market, and that his Lordship was quite plainly dressed; and how English Lord Mayors were not necessarily "hommes du monde," nor always hand in glove with Queen Victoria!

      Splendide mendax!

      But they forgave him all his mendacity for the sake of a new accomplishment he had brought back with him, and which beat all his others. He could actually turn a somersault backwards with all the ease and finish of a professional acrobat. How he got to do this I don't know. It must have been natural to him and he never found it out before; he was always good at gymnastics—and all things that required grace and agility more than absolute strength.

      Also he brought back with him (from Leadenhall Market, no doubt) a gigantic horned owl, fairly tame—and with eyes that reminded us of le grand Bonzig's.

      School began, and with it the long evenings with an hour's play by lamp‑light in the warm salle d'études; and the cold lamp‑lit ninety minutes' preparation on an empty stomach, after the short perfunctory morning prayer—which didn't differ much from the evening one.

      Barty was still en cinquième, at the top! and I at the tail of the class immediately above—so near and yet so far! so I did not have many chances of improving my acquaintance with him that term; for he still stuck to Laferté and Bussy‑Rabutin—they were inseparable, those three.

      At mid‑day play‑time the weather was too cold for anything but games, which were endless in their variety and excitement; it would take a chapter to describe them.

      It is a mistake to think that French school‑boys are (or were) worse off than ours in this. I will not say that any one French game is quite so good as cricket or football for a permanency. But I remember a great many that are very nearly so.

      Indeed, French rounders (la balle au camp) seems to me the best game that ever was—on account of the quick rush and struggle of the fielders to get home when an inside boy is hit between the bases, lest he should pick the ball up in time to hit one of them with it before the camp is reached; in which case there is a most exciting scrimmage for the ball, etc., etc.

      Barty was good at all games, especially la balle au camp. I used to envy the graceful, easy way he threw the ball—so quick and straight it seemed to have no curve at all in its trajectory: and how it bounded off the boy it nearly always hit between the shoulders!

      At evening, play in the school‑room, besides draughts and chess and backgammon; M. Bonzig, when de service, would tell us thrilling stories, with "la suite au prochain numéro" when the bell rang at 7.30; a long series that lasted through the winter of '47‑'48. Le Tueur de Daims, Le Lac Ontario, Le Dernier des Mohicans, Les Pionniers, La Prairie—by one Fénimore Coupère; all of which he had read in M. Defauconpret's admirable translations. I have read some of them in their native American since then, myself. I loved them always—but they seemed to lack some of the terror, the freshness, and the charm his fluent utterance and solemn nasal voice put into them as he sat and smoked his endless cigarettes with his back against the big stone stove, and his eyes dancing sideways through his glasses. Never did that "ding‑dang‑dong" sound more hateful than when le grand Bonzig was telling the tale of Bas‑de‑cuir's doings, from his innocent youth to his noble and pathetic death by sunset, with his ever‑faithful and still‑serviceable but no longer deadly rifle (the friend of sixty years) lying across his knees. I quote from memory; what a gun that was!

      Then on Thursdays, long walks, two by two, in Paris, with Bonzig or Dumollard; or else in the Bois to play rounders or prisoners' base in a clearing, or skate on the Mare aux Biches, which was always so hard to find in the dense thicket … poor Lord Runswick! He found it once too often!

      La Mare d'Auteuil was too deep, and too popular with "la flotte de Passy," as we called the Passy voyous, big and small, who came there in their hundreds—to slide and pick up quarrels with well‑dressed and respectable school‑boys. Liberté—égalité—fraternité! ou la mort! Vive la république! (This, by‑the‑way, applies to the winter that came next.)

      So time wore on with us gently; through the short vacation at New‑year's day till the 23d or 24th of February, when the Revolution broke out, and Louis Philippe premier had to fly for his life. It was a very troublous time, and the school for a whole week was in a state of quite heavenly demoralization! Ten times a day, or in the dead of night, the drum would beat le rappel or la générale. A warm wet wind was blowing—the most violent wind I can remember that was not an absolute gale. It didn't rain, but the clouds hurried across the sky all