"Ah bon, fratello!" cried Zotique that afternoon when de La Lande appeared at his door, "How goes it? Come in and speak to Mr. Chrysler, here."
"It goes ill, Zotique," answered the school master, gloomily, "I have had the Curé again."
"And what did he say to you?"
"Quarrels with everything in the system. Our geography was galimatias, and book-keeping a crime: the people must not think they were on a level with the learned, and the children must do this and that. At last—at last—I was exasperated, and told him I had a right under the laws to my position and powers. He said there can be no right against the Right! I told him there were many wrongs against the Right! And he went away saying he would bring me to a bed of straw."
"Let him do!" laughed the Registrar.
But Zotique himself was not to escape quite scot-free, for when Chrysler stopped next day at his office, as he was getting accustomed to do, he found him in one of his excitements.
[F]"Àc-ré-yé!" he was ejaculating.
[Footnote F: NOTE—An evasive form of "Sacre," analogous to "Sapre,"
"Sacristie," "Sac," "St. Christophe," &c.]
"Ah, good day, sir. Come in and take a seat Àa-a-créyé, how they enrage us!"—and he cast an impatient glance on the floor at a large envelope deeply marked with his heel.
"What is the matter?" Chrysler queried.