I had forgotten it myself.” Thus were physics taught. Things mended, however; a master came, and came to stay,—one who knew that the long branch of a barometer is closed. I obtained tables on which my pupils could write instead of scrawling on their knees, and as my class grew daily larger, it ended by being divided. As soon as I had an assistant to look after the younger ones, things changed for the better. Among the subjects taught, one pleased master and pupils equally. This was out-of-door geometry, practical surveying. The college had none of the necessary outfit, but with my large emoluments—700 francs, if you please!—I could not hesitate as to making the outlay. A measuring chain and stakes, a level, square, and compass were bought at my expense. A tiny graphometer, hardly bigger than one’s palm, and worth about 4s. 2d., was furnished by the college. We had no tripod, and I had one made. In short, my outfit was complete. When May came, once a week the gloomy class-room was exchanged for the fields, and we all felt it as a holiday. There were disputes as to the honour of carrying the stakes, divided into packets of three, and more than one shoulder as we went through the town felt glorified in the sight of all by the learned burden. I myself—why conceal it?—was not without a certain satisfaction at carrying tenderly the most precious part of the apparatus, the famous four-and-twopenny graphometer. The scene of operations was an uncultivated pebbly plain—a harmas, as we call it in these parts. No curtain of live hedge, no bushes, hindered me from keeping an eye upon my followers; here—an all important condition—I need not fear temptation from green apricots for my scholars. There was free scope for all imaginable polygons; trapezes and triangles might be joined at will. Wide distances suggested plenty of elbow room, and there was even an ancient building, once a dovecote, which lent its vertical lines to the service of the graphometer.