There was no mistake about the blindfolding—I helped in it myself; and he afterwards told me the whole thing was "aussi simple que bonjour" if once he felt the north—for then, with his back to the refectory door, he knew exactly the position and distance of every tree from where he was.
"It's all nonsense about my going blind and being able to do without a dog"—he added; "I should be just as helpless as any other blind man, unless I was in a place I knew as well as my own pocket—like this play‑ground! Besides, I sha'n't go blind; nothing will ever happen to my eyes—they're the strongest and best in the whole school!"
He said this exultingly, dilating his nostrils and chest; and looked proudly up and around, like Ajax defying the lightning.
"But what do you feel when you feel the north, Barty—a kind of tingling?" I asked.
"Oh—I feel where it is—as if I'd got a mariner's compass trembling inside my stomach—and as if I wasn't afraid of anybody or anything in the world—as if I could go and have my head chopped off and not care a fig."
"Ah, well—I can't make it out—I give it up," I exclaimed.
"So do I," exclaims Barty.
"But tell me, Barty," I whispered, "have you—have you really got a—a—special friend above?"
"Ask no questions and you'll get no lies," said Barty, and winked at me one eye after the other—and went about his business. And I about mine.
Thus it is hardly to be wondered at that the spirit of this extraordinary boy seemed to pervade the Pension F. Brossard, almost from the day he came to the day he left it—a slender stripling over six feet high, beautiful as Apollo but, alas! without his degree, and not an incipient hair on his lip or chin!