He stood beside him without speaking or moving. The young mathematician felt the child’s presence, and plunged deeper and deeper into his mathematical calculations, whence he emerged victorious ten minutes later. Then he turned to his young comrade with that inward satisfaction of a man who issues victorious from any struggle, be it with science or things material. The child stood erect, pale, his teeth clinched, his arms rigid and his fists closed. “Oh! oh!” said young Bonaparte, “what is the matter now?” “Valence, the governor’s nephew, struck me.” “Ah!” said Bonaparte, laughing, “and you have come to me to strike him back?” The child shook his head. “No,” said he, “I have come to you because I want to fight him--” “Fight Valence?” “Yes.” “But Valence will beat you, child; he is four times as strong as you.” “Therefore I don’t want to fight him as children do, but like men fight.” “Pooh!” “Does that surprise you?” asked the child. “No,” said Bonaparte; “what do you want to fight with?” “With swords.” “But only the sergeants have swords, and they won’t lend you one.” “Then we will do without swords.” “But what will you fight with?” The child pointed to the compass with which the young mathematician had made his equations. “Oh! my child,” said Bonaparte, “a compass makes a very bad wound.” “So much the better,” replied Louis; “I can kill him.” “But suppose he kills you?” “I’d rather that than bear his blow.” Bonaparte made no further objections; he loved courage, instinctively, and his young comrade’s pleased him. “Well, so be it!” he replied; “I will tell Valence that you wish to fight him, but not till to-morrow.” “Why to-morrow?” “You will have the night to reflect.” “And from now till to-morrow,” replied the child, “Valence will think me a coward.” Then shaking his head, “It is too long till to-morrow.” And he walked away. “Where are you going?” Bonaparte asked him. “To ask some one else to be my friend.” “So I am no longer your friend?” “No, since you think I am a coward.” “Very well,” said the young man rising. “You will go?” “I am going.” “At once?” “At once.” “Ah!” exclaimed the child, “I beg your pardon; you are indeed my friend.” And he fell upon his neck weeping. They were the first tears he had shed since he had received the blow. Bonaparte went in search of Valence and gravely explained his mission to him. Valence was a tall lad of seventeen, having already, like certain precocious natures, a beard and mustache; he appeared at least twenty. He was, moreover, a head taller than the boy he had insulted. Valence replied that Louis had pulled his queue as if it were a bell-cord (queues were then in vogue)--that he had warned him twice to desist, but that Louis had repeated the prank the third time, whereupon, considering him a mischievous youngster, he had treated him as such.