The Schoolmaster: Carpentras 



This twenty-four hours' delay concealed a plan. 

 It secured me the respite of a day, the blessed Thurs- 

 day, which would give me time to collect my forces. 



Thursday comes. The sky is grey and cold. In 

 this horrid weather a grate well-filled with coke 

 has its charms. Let's warm ourselves and think. 



Well, my boy, you've landed yourself in a nice 

 predicament! How will you manage to-morrow? 

 With a book, plodding all through the night, if nec- 

 essary, you might scrape up something resembling a 

 lesson, just enough to fill the dread hour more or 

 less. Then you could see about the next: suffi- 

 cient for the day is the evil thereof. But you 

 haven't the book. And it's no use running out to 

 the bookshop. Algebraical treatises are not current 

 wares. You'll have to send for one, which will take 

 a fortnight at least. And I've promised for to- 

 morrow, for to-morrow certain! Another argu- 

 ment and one that admits of no reply: funds are 

 low; my last pecuniary resources lie in the corner 

 of a drawer. I count the money: it amounts to 

 twelve sous, which is not enough. 



Must I cry off? Rather not! One resource 

 suggests itself: a highly improper one, I admit, not 

 far removed, indeed, from larceny. ' O quiet paths 

 of algebra, you are my excuse for this venial sin! 

 Let me confess the temporary embezzlement. 



Life at my College is more or less cloistered. In 

 return for a modest payment, most of us masters 

 are lodged in the building; and we take our meals 

 at the principal's table. The science-master, who 

 is the big gun of the staff and lives in the town, 

 103 



