Old Fottner was proud of his son, on whom a faint reflection of his future dignity already rested, who was invited to dinner by the priest, took walks with the Vicar, and played tarot with the teacher and the chief of the constabulary.
And the Bridge Farmer was satisfied, too, even though he occasionally found the expenditures of his young protégé somewhat large. But he said nothing, fearing that the latter might still lie down in the traces if he put too little oats before him.
So Matt spent a merry vacation, and marched back to Freising in October with renewed strength.
Unfortunately he was destined to fall on evil days. The master of the fifth form was a disagreeable man: strict and very caustic and sarcastic to boot.
The first time he saw this sky-scraping farmer lad, who did look queer enough on the school benches, he laughed and asked him whether he towered equally high above his fellow pupils in intellect. That this was not the case could not remain a secret, and then the bantering never ceased. At first the teacher really tried to strike sparks out of this stone; but when he found he could not, he soon enough gave up all hope.
Matthew Fottner made no objection at all when they no longer consulted his opinion on the Gallic War or Caius Julius Caesar, and conjugated the Greek verbs without his cooperation.
He laughed good-humoredly when every word in his exercises was underscored with red, and he marveled at the ambition of the little fellows before and beside him, disputing as to whether something was right or wrong.
But to be sure, given such a point of view, the end was easy to foresee, and in August the Bridge Farmer faced the same choice as two years before, whether or not to maintain his confidence in the Fottner youth.
That is, he really no longer had any choice, for now, after six years, he could not very well begin a new experiment with somebody else.
So he comforted himself with the reflection that a good horse pulls twice, and swallowed his bitter pill.