time, to the child's great regret, for he wished to assure himself if the
degrees of latitude and longitude were checked off in squares on M.
Batifol's cranium as they were on the terrestrial globe. He conducted
his pupil to his class at once and presented him to the master.

"Here is a new day scholar, Monsieur Tavernier. You will find out how
far advanced he is in reading and writing, if you please." M. Tavernier
was a tall young man with a sallow complexion, a bachelor who, had he
been living like his late father, a sergeant of the gendarmes, in a
pretty house surrounded by apple trees and green grass, would not,
perhaps, have had that 'papier-mache' appearance, and would not have been
dressed at eight o'clock in the morning in a black coat of the kind we
see hanging in the Morgue. M. Tavernier received the newcomer with a
sickly smile, which disappeared as soon as M. Batifol left the room.

"Go and take your place in that empty seat there, in the third row," said
M. Tavernier, in an indifferent tone.

He deigned, however, to conduct Amedee to the seat which he was to
occupy. Amedee's neighbor, one of the future citizens preparing for
social life--several with patches upon their trousers--had been naughty
enough to bring into class a handful of cockchafers. He was punished by
a quarter of an hour's standing up, which he did soon after, sulking at
the foot of the sycamore-tree in the large court.

"You will soon see what a cur he is," whispered the pupil in disgrace;
as soon as the teacher had returned to his seat.

M. Tavernier struck his ruler on the edge of his chair, and, having
reestablished silence, invited pupil Godard to recite his lesson.