PRIDE.
Saturday, 11th.
The idea of Carlo Nobis rubbing off his sleeve affectedly, when Precossi touches him in passing! That fellow is pride incarnate because his father is a rich man. But Derossi’s father is rich too. He would like to have a bench to himself; he is afraid that the rest will soil it; he looks down on everybody and always has a scornful smile on his lips: woe to him who stumbles over his foot, when we go out in files two by two! For a mere trifle he flings an insulting word in your face, or a threat to get his father to come to the school. It is true that his father did give him a good lesson when he called the little son of the charcoal-man a ragamuffin. I have never seen so disagreeable a schoolboy! No one speaks to him, no one says good by to him when he goes out; there is not even a dog who would give him a suggestion when he does not know his lesson. And he cannot endure any one, and he pretends to despise Derossi more than all, because he is the head boy; and Garrone, because he is beloved by all. But Derossi pays no attention to him when he is by; and when the boys tell Garrone that Nobis has been speaking ill of him, he says:—
“His pride is so senseless that it does not deserve even my passing notice.”
But Coretti said to him one day, when he was smiling disdainfully at his catskin cap:—
“Go to Derossi for a while, and learn how to play the gentleman!”
Yesterday he complained to the master, because the Calabrian touched his leg with his foot. The master asked the Calabrian:—
“Did you do it intentionally?”—“No, sir,” he replied, frankly.—“You are too petulant, Nobis.”
And Nobis retorted, in his airy way, “I shall tell my father about it.” Then the teacher got angry.