“I cannot endure Boris,” said Ghéridanisol one day to Strouvilhou. “Why did you tell me to let him alone? He doesn’t want to be let alone as much as all that. He is always looking in my direction.... The other day he made us all split with laughter because he thought that a woman togged out in her bearskin meant wearing her furs. George jeered at him, and when at last Boris took it in I thought he was going to howl.” Then Ghéridanisol pressed his cousin with questions and finally Strouvilhou gave him Boris’s _talisman_ and explained its use. A few days later, when Boris went into the schoolroom, he saw this paper, whose existence he had almost forgotten, lying on his desk. He had put it out of his mind with everything else that related to the “magic” of his early childhood, of which he was now ashamed. He did not at first recognize it, for Ghéridanisol had taken pains to frame the words of the incantation “GAS ... TELEPHONE ... ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND ROUBLES.” with a large red and black border adorned with obscene little imps, who, it must be owned, were not at all badly drawn. This decoration gave the paper a fantastic--an infernal appearance, thought Ghéridanisol--which he calculated would be likely to upset Boris. Perhaps it was done in play, but it succeeded beyond all expectation. Boris blushed crimson, said nothing, looked right and left, and failed to see Ghéridanisol, who was watching him from behind the door. Boris had no reason to suspect him, and could not understand how the talisman came to be there; it was as though it had fallen from heaven--or rather, risen up from hell. Boris was old enough to shrug his shoulders, no doubt, at these schoolboy bedevilments; but they stirred troubled waters. Boris took the talisman and slipped it into his pocket. All the rest of the day, the recollection of his “magic” practices haunted him. He struggled until evening with unholy solicitations and then, as there was no longer anything to support him in his struggle, he fell. He felt that he was going to his ruin, sinking further and further away from Heaven; but he took pleasure in so falling--found in his very fall itself the stuff of his enjoyment. And yet, in spite of his misery, in the depths of his dereliction, he kept such stores of tenderness, his companions’ contempt caused him suffering so keen, that he would have dared anything, however dangerous, however foolhardy, for the sake of a little consideration. An opportunity soon offered. After they had been obliged to give up their traffic in false coins, Ghéridanisol, George and Phiphi did not long remain unoccupied. The ridiculous pranks with which they amused themselves for the first few days were merely stop-gaps. Ghéridanisol’s imagination soon invented something with more stuff to it.