_The gentle Anatole France, with "vast learning worn with an almost mocking air," conserver of pure, unaffected French, chief of the school inaugurating the sociological novel, the fiction of ideas, was born at Paris in 1844. Since his first attempt at verse, he has written only in prose, "The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard," in 1881, giving him at once his place in literature and winning a crown from the Academy. Besides "Thäis," a masterpiece of color and construction, he has written volumes of contemporary criticism and history--but in all he writes he figures forth the soul of Anatole France, a complex, subtle soul of varied moods, attached to no religion, with sympathy for all. His style, pure as spring water, is flavored with a delicate irony. Anatole France, or Anatole François Thibault, to use his real name, succeeded Jules Claretie on "Le Temps," and in 1896 was elected to the Academy._ [Illustration] _Dedicated to Georges Brandes_ PUTOIS BY ANATOLE FRANCE Translated by William Patten. Copyright, 1907, by P. F. Collier & Son. I This garden of our childhood, said Monsieur Bergeret, this garden that one could pace off in twenty steps, was for us a whole world, full of smiles and surprises. "Lucien, do you recall Putois?" asked Zoe, smiling as usual, the lips pressed, bending over her work. "Do I recall Putois! Of all the faces I saw as a child that of Putois remains the clearest in my remembrance. All the features of his face and his character are fixed in my mind. He had a pointed cranium...." "A low forehead," added Mademoiselle Zoe. And the brother and sister recited alternately, in a monotonous voice, with an odd gravity, the points in a sort of description: "A low forehead." "Squinting eyes." "A shifty glance." "Crow's-feet at the temples." "The cheek-bones sharp, red and shining." "His ears had no rims to them." "The features were devoid of all expression." "His hands, which were never still, alone expressed his meaning." "Thin, somewhat bent, feeble in appearance...." "In reality he was unusually strong." "He easily bent a five-franc piece between the first finger and the thumb...." "Which was enormous." "His voice was drawling...." "And his speech mild." Suddenly Monsieur Bergeret exclaimed: "Zoe! we have forgotten 'Yellow hair and sparse beard.' Let us begin all over again." Pauline, who had listened with astonishment to this strange recital, asked her father and aunt how they had been able to learn by heart this bit of prose, and why they recited it as if it were a litany. Monsieur Bergeret gravely answered: