seen of him in the street, although I kept looking up and down it with
the greatest impatience and with an emphatic longing never to see the
maitre again.

"I believe he is not coming to-day," said Woloda, looking up for a
moment from his lesson-book.

"I hope he is not, please the Lord!" I answered, but in a despondent
tone. "Yet there he DOES come, I believe, all the same!"

"Not he! Why, that is a GENTLEMAN," said Woloda, likewise looking out of
the window, "Let us wait till half-past two, and then ask St. Jerome if
we may put away our books."

"Yes, and wish them au revoir," I added, stretching my arms, with the
book clasped in my hands, over my head. Having hitherto idled away my
time, I now opened the book at the place where the lesson was to begin,
and started to learn it. It was long and difficult, and, moreover, I
was in the mood when one's thoughts refuse to be arrested by anything at
all. Consequently I made no progress. After our last lesson in history
(which always seemed to me a peculiarly arduous and wearisome subject)
the history master had complained to St. Jerome of me because only two
good marks stood to my credit in the register--a very small total. St.
Jerome had then told me that if I failed to gain less than THREE marks
at the next lesson I should be severely punished. The next lesson was
now imminent, and I confess that I felt a little nervous.

So absorbed, however, did I become in my reading that the sound of
goloshes being taken off in the ante-room came upon me almost as a
shock. I had just time to look up when there appeared in the doorway the