When he was in the Guards he would tell you quite frankly he was "the handsomest chap in all the Household Brigade, bar three"—just as he would tell you he was twenty last birthday. And the fun of it was that the three exceptions he was good enough to make, splendid fellows as they were, seemed as satyrs to Hyperion when compared with Barty Josselin. One (F. Pepys) was three or four inches taller, it is true, being six foot seven or eight—a giant. The two others had immense whiskers, which Barty openly envied, but could not emulate—and the mustache with which he would have been quite decently endowed in time was not permitted in an infantry regiment.
To return to the Pension Brossard, and Barty the school‑boy:
He adored Monsieur Mérovée because he was big and strong and handsome—not because he was one of the best fellows that ever lived. He disliked Monsieur Durosier, whom we were all so fond of, because he had a slight squint and a receding chin.
As for the Anglophobe, Monsieur Dumollard, who made no secret of his hatred and contempt for perfidious Albion....
"Dis donc, Josselin!" says Maurice, in English or French, as the case might be, "why don't you like Monsieur Dumollard? Eh? He always favors you more than any other chap in the school. I suppose you dislike him because he hates the English so, and always runs them down before you and me—and says they're all traitors and sneaks and hypocrites and bullies and cowards and liars and snobs; and we can't answer him, because he's the mathematical master!"
"Ma foi, non!" says Josselin—"c'est pas pour ça!"
"Pourquoi, alors?" says Maurice (that's me).
"C'est parce qu'il a le pied bourgeois et la jambe canaille!" says Barty. (It's because he's got common legs and vulgar feet.)
And that's about the lowest and meanest thing I ever heard him say in his life.
Also, he was not always very sympathetic, as a boy, when one was sick or sorry or out of sorts, for he had never been ill in his life, never known an ache or a pain—except once the mumps, which he seemed to thoroughly enjoy—and couldn't realize suffering of any kind, except such suffering as most school‑boys all over the world are often fond of inflicting on dumb animals: this drove him frantic, and led to many a licking by bigger boys. I remember several such scenes—one especially.