210 FLIPPY. 



and are frequented by great numbers of people every pleas- 

 ant day. There are broad and handsome walks, and groves 

 of trees, and seats, and smooth open spaces where children 

 play the children being usually good-natured and very 

 polite to each other, as is the custom in France. 



Lawrence and John were seated together upon chairs 

 near a massive group of statuary in these gardens, talking 

 together on the subject of optical illusions, and Lawrence 

 had already said to John what has been stated in this chap- 

 ter, when John's eyes accidentally fell upon a group con- 

 sisting of a gentleman and lady, with an elegantly dressed 

 boy accompanying them, who were walking at a little dis- 

 tance. John did not recognize the boy as any person that 

 he had ever seen before ; indeed, he did not pay particular 

 attention to him, as his mind was occupied with listening 

 to what Lawrence was saying, when all at once the boy 

 suddenly started and came running toward the seat where 

 Lawrence and John were sitting, waving his cap and call- 

 ing out, Sac a papier! Vive lajoie! He paid no atten- 

 tion to his father, who, in very earnest and authoritative 

 voice, was calling upon him to stop and come back. John 

 did not recognize him at first, but he soon saw that it was 

 Flippy. Those who have read the volume of this series 

 entitled HEAT will remember Flippy as one of John's fel- 

 low-passengers in crossing the Atlantic. 



The shouts that Flippy uttered were French exclama- 

 tions, common among French boys on such occasions, the 

 first being expressive of surprise, and the other of exulta- 

 tion ; but how the phrase JBag for paper ! has ever come 

 1 to be used for an expression of surprise would puzzle the 

 most learned philologists, one would think, to determine. 

 Flippy was beginning to learn French, and such expres- 

 sions as these, when he heard them, made a great impres- 

 sion on his fancy, and he used them on every occasion. 



