“I wondered,” said Madame Jaubert, “whether we should get through the evening without an allusion to M. Cousin.”
“When I die,” said Herr Heine, “I should like a stool to be placed on either side of my tomb, with an inscription: ‘Here lies a man who fell from Heaven between two stools.’”
“Geniuses,” said M. de Musset....
(The end of the letter is missing)
P.S.—Bellini died suddenly to-day, so Herr Heine’s prophecy came true.
SMITH MAJOR
Letter from a Private Schoolboy to a Public Schoolboy
St. James, March 4, 1885.
Dear Chinee,
Thanks awfuly for your letter. Eton must be jolly. I am glad I’m coming next term instead of at Micalmass. I shall be glad to leave this beastly hole. Wilson ma. has got a scholarship at Westminster and we were going to have a whole holiday extra only now its stopped worse luck! Yesterday the Head went to London and Mac sent a message to the First Div. to say we wernt to dig in Wilderness while the Head was away. Middleton brought the message and Wilson ma. told him to go and ask Mac if the message was genuine. Middleton thought he was ragging but he said: “You must take my message you Second Division squit if you don’t I’ll smack your head.” So Middleton did. Mac was in an awful wax and sent for Wilson and asked him what he meant by it. Wilson said it was a joke—he never thought Middleton would take the message.