that he could supplant me whenever he chose. I could see it clearly in
his way of addressing me, as well as in the change in his proceedings.

He was beginning to hold with my friends frequent conversations to which
I was not summoned, and he had contrived to make them introduce him to
several families which I was not in the habit of visiting. He assumed his
grand jesuitic airs, and, although with honeyed word he would take the
liberty of censuring me because I sometimes spent a night out, and, as he
would say, "God knows where!"

I was particularly vexed at his seeming to accuse me of leading his pupil
astray. He then would assume the tone of a man speaking jestingly, but I
was not deceived. I thought it was time to put an end to his game, and
with that intention I paid him a visit in his bedroom. When I was seated,
I said,

"I come, as a true worshipper of the Gospel, to tell you in private
something that, another time, I would say in public."

"What is it, my dear friend?"

"I advise you for the future not to hurl at me the slightest taunt
respecting the life I am leading with Bavois, when we are in the presence
of my three worthy friends. I do not object to listen to you when we are
alone."

"You are wrong in taking my innocent jests seriously."

"Wrong or right, that does not matter. Why do you never attack your
proselyte? Be careful for the future, or I might on my side, and only in