“Best scholah in the school, yet the only—that loves not her teacher. But I give always my interest, not according to the interestingness, but rather to the necessitude, of each.”
The visit was not long. Standing, about to depart, the visitor seemed still, as at the first, a man of many reservations under his polite smiles. But just then he dropped a phrase that the teacher recognized as an indirect quotation, and Bonaventure cried, with greedy eyes:—
“You have read Victor Hugo?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, sir, that grea-a-at man! That father of libbutty! Other patriots are the sons, but he the father! Is it not thus?”
The priest shrugged and made a mouth. The young schoolmaster’s face dropped.
“Sir, I must ask you—is he not the frien’ of the poor and downtrod?”
The visitor’s smile quite disappeared. He said:—
“Oh!”—and waved a hand impatiently; “Victor Hugo”—another mouth—“Victor Hugo”—replying in French to the schoolmaster’s English—“is not of my party.” And then he laughed unpleasantly and said good-day.
The State Superintendent did not come, but every day—“It is perhaps he shall come to-mo’w, chil’run; have yo’ lessons well!”