The whole school‑room was convulsed with laughter.
"Josselin—leave the room—you will be severely punished, as you deserve—you are a vulgar buffoon—a jo‑crisse—a paltoquet, a mountebank! Go, petit polisson—go!"
The polisson picked up his pocket‑handkerchief and went-quite quietly, with simple manly grace; and that's the first I ever saw of Barty Josselin—and it was some fifty years ago.
At 3.30 the bell sounded for the half‑hour's recreation, and the boys came out to play.
Josselin was sitting alone on a bench, thoughtful, with his hand in the inner breast pocket of his Eton jacket.
M. Bonzig went straight to him, buttoned up and severe—his eyes dancing, and glancing from right to left through his spectacles; and Josselin stood up very politely.
"Sit down!" said M. Bonzig; and sat beside him, and talked to him with grim austerity for ten minutes or more, and the boy seemed very penitent and sorry.
Presently he drew forth from his pocket his white mouse, and showed it to the long usher, who looked at it with great seeming interest for a long time, and finally took it into the palm of his own hand—where it stood on its hind legs—and stroked it with his little finger.
Soon Josselin produced a small box of chocolate drops, which he opened and offered to M. Bonzig, who took one and put it in his mouth, and seemed to like it. Then they got up and walked to and fro together, and the usher put his arm round the boy's shoulder, and there was peace and good‑will between them; and before they parted Josselin had intrusted his white mouse to "le grand Bonzig"-who intrusted it to Mlle. Marceline, the head lingère, a very kind and handsome person, who found for it a comfortable home in an old bonbon‑box lined with blue satin, where it had a large family and fed on the best, and lived happily ever after.