“You, the third boy on the second bench!” cried the professor, now quite losing patience.
The third boy on the second bench was me. The boys near me said, “Get up! get up!” As there was certainly some mistake somewhere, I still hesitated, when I felt a sudden and violent push, which came from I knew not where, and I was on my legs. I looked at the professor, feeling very foolish.
He was a worthy man: thinking he had a very stupid and nervous pupil before him he questioned me in a kind, gentle tone to encourage me. Presently he stooped over his desk, and then looked up quite surprised. “But, I see,” cried he, “that there is no pupil of the name of Borniquet on the list! Why what is your name?”
“Bicquerot,” I said.
He tapped his forehead and declared that he had made a slip of the tongue. “That might happen to any one,” he remarked, turning towards the laughing boys.
But it was a curious thing that he should have made the mistake in the name so many times. His tongue had a strange way of slipping. During the whole year I was called by the two names, and had to answer sometimes to Borniquet, sometimes to Bicquerot. And naturally my schoolfellows preferred calling me by my wrong name Borniquet.
XXXIII.
MY NOSE STILL TROUBLES ME.
A curly headed little boy, with eyes sparkling with malice, and a tiny turned-up nose, came close up to me and said: “Don’t you intend to give it back to me?”
“What do you mean?” I asked in surprise.