While all this was happening, Betsy, looking on, was convulsed with laughter. She had not had this particular ending in mind when she had called Tom Pipes to play with her, but no deliberate practical joke of hers had ever been more amusing to her; and the best part of it was that the Emperor could not really blame her nor punish Tom Pipes.
Very often, however, it was not Betsy who got the best of a practical joke. Not infrequently she lost her temper over little things that were not worth minding, and Napoleon, to whom she was a constant source of amusement, could not forbear teasing her, just to see how she would take his fun. One day, looking over Betsy's shoulder, Napoleon discovered that her translation was not finished. Her father required this bit of work from her every day, and now Napoleon saw a way to pay her back in some of her own coin.
Taking the paper from Betsy, and holding it aloft, the Emperor approached Mr. Balcombe, who was now mounting his horse for a ride.
"Balcombe," he cried, "voilà le thème de Mdlle. Betsee. Qu'elle a bien travaillé!" he concluded sarcastically.
Betsy's father looked at the sheet of paper which was quite blank, and, entering into the spirit of the thing with Napoleon, he professed to be very angry. Calling Betsy to him, he reproved her severely.
"If your translation is not ready when I return home to dinner, I will punish you severely." Mortified by this reproof, Betsy cherished plans of retaliation against the Emperor, which she carried out when she pinioned him in the corner with her sword.
Yet after all she deserved the reproof, since her father had made a rigid rule that his daughters should have a translation from English into French ready every morning before the hour when Napoleon visited The Briars. He rightly considered it a great privilege for the young girls that the great man should be willing to look at their French themes, with a view to improving their use of his language.
One morning the sisters observed Archambaud, Napoleon's groom, leading a beautiful horse in front of the house.
"That is the Arab they have bought for him to ride."
"I shouldn't think he'd care to ride that horse," responded the timid Jane. "See how he rears and plunges."