"What is your name, then?" went on the child, "so that I may tell the others when they wish to know your name?"
"Phillip," answered the man.
Simon was silent a moment so that he might get the name well into his head; then he stretched out his arms quite consoled as he said:
"Well, then, Phillip, you are my Papa."
The workman, lifting him from the ground kissed him hastily on both cheeks, and then made off very quickly with great strides.
When the child returned to school next day he was received with a spiteful laugh, and at the end of school when the lads were on the point of recommencing, Simon threw these words at their heads as he would have done a stone: "He is named Phillip, my Papa."
Yells of delight burst out from all sides.
"Phillip who? ... Phillip what? What on earth is Phillip? Where did you pick up your Phillip?"
Simon answered nothing; and immovable in faith he defied them with his eye, ready to be martyred rather than fly before them. The school-master came to his rescue and he returned home to his mother.
During three months, the tall workman, Phillip, frequently passed by the Blanchotte's house, and sometimes he made bold to speak to her when he saw her sewing near the window. She answered him civilly, always sedately, never joking with him, nor permitting him to enter her house. Notwithstanding which, being, like all men, a bit of a coxcomb, he imagined that she was often rosier than usual when she chatted with him.