Again reinstated in my position of superiority I explained the Master to her feminine intelligence.
"He has been to every place in the world and knows everything that is to be known, and speaks every language that is spoken under the sun, and has read every book that ever was written, and I have seen him break a violin over a man's head."
"Tiens!" said Blanquette.
"In the Forum at Rome last winter he had an argument with the most learned professor in Europe who is making the excavations, and proved him to be wrong."
"Tiens!" repeated Blanquette, much impressed, though of Forum or excavations she had no more notion than Narcisse.
"If he wanted to be a king tomorrow, he would only have to go up to a throne and sit upon it."
"But no," said Blanquette. "To be a king one must be a king's son."
"How do you know that he isn't?" I asked with a could-and if-I-would expression of mystery.
"King's sons don't go about the high roads with little gamins like you," replied the practical Blanquette.
"How do you know that I am not a king's son too?" I asked, less with the idea of self-aggrandisement than that of vindication of Paragot.