Palaiseau, in his brief triumph, sniffed louder.
"Palaiseau," said Monsieur Bonzig, "si vous vous serviez de votre mouchoir—hein? Je crois que cela ne gênerait personne!" (If you were to use your pocket‑handkerchief—eh? I don't think it would inconvenience anybody!)
At this there was a general titter all round, which was immediately suppressed, as in a court of law; and Palaiseau reluctantly and noisily did as he was told.
In front of me that dishonest little sneak Rapaud, with a tall parapet of books before him to serve as a screen, one hand shading his eyes, and an inkless pen in the other, was scratching his copy‑book with noisy earnestness, as if time were too short for all he had to write about the pious Æneas's recitative, while he surreptitiously read the Comte de Monte Cristo, which lay open in his lap—just at the part where the body, sewn up in a sack, was going to be hurled into the Mediterranean. I knew the page well. There was a splash of red ink on it.
It made my blood boil with virtuous indignation to watch him, and I coughed and hemmed again and again to attract his attention, for his back was nearly towards me. He heard me perfectly, but took no notice whatever, the deceitful little beast. He was to have given up Monte Cristo to me at half‑past two, and here it was twenty minutes to three! Besides which, it was my Monte Cristo, bought with my own small savings, and smuggled into school by me at great risk to myself.
"Maurice!" said M. Bonzig.
"Oui, m'sieur!" said I. I will translate:
"You shall conjugate and copy out for me forty times the compoundverb, 'I cough without necessity to distract the attention of my comrade Rapaud from his Latin exercise!'"
"Moi, m'sieur?" I ask, innocently.
"Oui, vous!"