There lay—will you believe it?—
My pointer on my arm.
JEAN PAUL’S SCHOOL-BOY EXPERIENCE.
When Jean Paul was first sent to school, a mischievous boy, taking advantage of his inexperience, told him that it was an established custom for each pupil, when he first entered, to kiss the hand of the master. This seemed to Paul but a suitable custom, and by no means extraordinary, as in his own family it was an established expression of reverence from the young to the old, and Paul, whenever he went to his grandfather’s, kissed his hand behind the loom. When he entered the French school, therefore, he bashfully approached the master, and, with honest faith, carried the brawny hand to his lips.
The poor Frenchman,—an indifferent and poorly-paid instructor, who had been a tapestry-worker,—suspecting some mystification or insult, broke out into the most violent anger, and Paul barely escaped a blow from the hand on which he had imprinted his loyal homage. The mirth of the class was expressed in a jubilant manner, and, between them both, Paul stood confused, ashamed, and in the highest degree mortified.
In this instance, we are told, he was taken by surprise, and betrayed by his loyal nature; but in another attempt to impose upon him he asserted his rank as a scholar with a degree of firmness and dignity that compelled respect ever after.
THE FIRST KISS.
Who has forgotten the emotions inspired by the first kiss? Pierce Pungent has exhausted himself in a vain attempt to describe what may be remembered, but cannot and should not be told. He says: