He was a second year's student. He spoke the prose of pleasure very
fluently, and had good eyes and a well-lined pocket.

Louise asked him for ink and paper, and wrote to Rodolphe a letter
couched as follows:--

"Do not rekkon on me at all. I sende you a kiss for the last time.
Good bye.

Louise."

As Rodolphe was reading this letter on reaching home in the evening, his
light suddenly went out.

"Hallo!" said he, reflectively, "it is the candle I first lit on the
evening that Louise came--it was bound to finish with our union. If I
had known I would have chosen a longer one," he added, in a tone of half
annoyance, half of regret, and he placed his mistress' note in a drawer,
which he sometimes styled the catacomb of his loves.

One day, being at Marcel's, Rodolphe picked up from the ground to light
his pipe with, a scrap of paper on which he recognized his handwriting
and the orthography of Louise.

"I have," said he to his friend, "an autograph of the same person, only
there are two mistakes the less than in yours. Does not that prove that
she loved me better than you?"

"That proves that you are a simpleton," replied Marcel. "White arms and
shoulders have no need of grammar."