It is very difficult to make up one’s mind to have a tooth pulled out (at least when one is a bit of a coward). No amount of reasoning or advice seems to have much effect. One is always inclined to reply to kind friends, “I know you are right to advise me to have it out, but I dare not.” However, when toothache once sets in badly, it has more effect than all the advice in the world, and, much as we dread the operation, we fly to the dentist and have the tooth out, painful as it is. Now that was very like the situation in which I found myself. I felt now that I really could have the courage to fight with a boy of five or six, if by that means I could wipe out the recollection of my cowardice from my own memory and the memory of my poor little friend. Unfortunately for my good resolutions, nobody else seemed inclined to torment Lehardy, and I felt that if I had to wait to display my courage, it would all evaporate like smoke. ------------------ XXXVII. INCONSISTENCY. MY courage did not go the length of making me cry out to my schoolfellows: “Whoever wishes to have a fight has only to touch Lehardy!” I only waited, determined that another time, should he need my protection, he would not have to look for it in vain. My good resolutions, I need not say, had no effect in changing my appearance. My nose had always excited laughter, and it did so no less now; when the boys made jokes about me, and gave me nicknames, such as Azor and Toucan, I did not dream of using my fists against them. No; my courage, if you could call it courage at all, had nothing aggressive in it; it was expectant only. My schoolfellows saw no change in the unfortunate Bicquerot, at whom they were accustomed to poke their fun. Still, come what might, I was decided that if any boy attempted to molest Lehardy, I would interfere, and would fight with all my strength in the cause of the poor little fellow whom I had deserted in such a cowardly way before. It was very strange that I should have felt so brave upon this one subject, and that my courage should have stopped there. The idea of resenting attacks upon myself never occurred to me. My thoughts were all taken up with the punishment of Lehardy’s aggressors. I leave the trouble of deciding why my courage should have first appeared in this form, to any profound philosopher who may think it worth his while to consider the subject. Was it from a want of logic, or absence of selfishness? ------------------ XXXVIII. MY PARENTS’ DEVOTION TO ME. WHEN I first became one of Miss Porquet’s pupils, _The Count_ had taunted me with the poverty of my parents. This idea once put into my head made me reflect upon many circumstances which I should have allowed to pass unnoticed had it not been there.