The Schoolmaster: Carpentras 



to celebrate on the eve the joys of the morrow, 

 that blessed Thursday ^ which I considered so well 

 employed in solving difficult equations, experiment- 

 ing with new chemical reagents, collecting and 

 identifying my plants. I made my timid request, 

 pretending to have come out without my money, 

 for it is hard for a self-respecting man to admit 

 that he is penniless. My candour appears to have 

 inspired some little confidence; and I obtained credit, 

 an unprecedented thing, with the representative of 

 the revenue. 



How I should love to see that room again where 

 I pored over differentials and integrals, where I 

 calmed my poor burning head by gazing at Mont 

 Ventoux, whose summit held in store for my com- 

 ing expedition ^ those denizens of Arctic climes, the 

 saxifrage and the poppy! And to see my familiar 

 friend, the blackboard, which I hired at five francs 

 a year from a crusty joiner, that board whose value 

 I paid many times over, though 1 could never buy 

 it outright, for want of the necessary cash! The 

 conic sections which I described on that black- 

 board, the learned hieroglyphics ! ^ 



Fabre has somewhere written, lamenting 

 the dearth of family reminiscences which 



iThe weekly half-holiday in the French schools. — A. T. 

 DE M. 



2 The Hunting Wasps, chap, xi., " An Ascent of Mont 

 Ventoux." 



^Souvenirs, iii., pp. 191-193. The Life of the Fly, 

 chap, iv., "Larval Dimorphism." 



