The Martian: A Novel - George Du Maurier

"Stabat mater dolorosa
Juxta crucem lachrymose
Dum pendebat fllius" ...

in a voice so sweet and innocent and pathetic that it would almost bring the tears to the good old curé's eyelash.

"Ah! ma chère Mamzelle Marceline!" he would say—"au moins s'ils étaient tous comme ce petit Josselin! çà irait comme sur des roulettes! Il est innocent comme un jeune veau, ce mioche anglais! Il a le bon Dieu dans le cœur!"

"Et une boussole dans l'estomac!" said Mlle. Marceline.

I don't think he was quite so innocent as all that, perhaps—but no young beast of the field was ever more harmless.

That year the examinations were good all round; even I did not disgrace myself, and Barty was brilliant. But there were no delightful holidays for me to record. Barty went to Yorkshire, and I remained in Paris with my mother.

There is only one thing more worth mentioning that year.

My father had inherited from his father a system of shorthand, which he called Blaze—I don't know why! His father had learnt it of a Dutch Jew.

It is, I think, the best kind of cipher ever invented (I have taken interest in these things and studied them). It is very difficult to learn, but I learnt it as a child—and it was of immense use to me at lectures we used to attend at the Sorbonne and Collège de France.