Barty didn't come off very well in this competition; but he came off anyhow much better than I, who had failed to be "diligent and attentive"—too much Monte Cristo, I'm afraid.
At all events Barty got five marks for English History, because he remembered a good deal about Richard Cœur de Lion, and John, and Friar Tuck, and Robin Hood, and especially one Cedric the Saxon, a historical personage of whom the examiner (a decorated gentleman from the Collège de France) had never even heard!
And then (to the tune of "Au clair de la lune"):
"Vivent les vacances—
Denique tandèm;
Et les pénitences—
Habebunt finèm!
Les pions intraitables,
Vultu Barbarò,
S'en iront aux diables,
Gaudio nostrò."
"Vivent les vacances—
Denique tandèm;
Et les pénitences—
Habebunt finèm!
Les pions intraitables,
Vultu Barbarò,
S'en iront aux diables,
Gaudio nostrò."
N.B.—The accent is always on the last syllable in French Latin—and pion means an usher.
Barty went to Yorkshire with the Rohans, and I spent most of my holidays with my mother and sister (and the beautiful Miss ———) at Mademoiselle Jalabert's, next door—coming back to school for most of my meals, and at
