Also fencing-masters, gymnastic masters, a Dutch master who taught us German and Italian--an Irish master with a lovely brogue who taught us English. Shall I ever forget the blessed day when ten or twelve of us were presented with an _Ivanhoe_ apiece as a class-book, or how Barty and I and Bonneville (who knew English) devoured the immortal story in less than a week--to the disgust of Rapaud, who refused to believe that we could possibly know such a beastly tongue as English well enough to read an English book for mere pleasure--on our desks in play-time, or on our laps in school, _en cachette_! "Quelle sacrée pose!" He soon mislaid his own copy, did Rapaud; just as he mislaid my _Monte Cristo_ and Jolivet's illustrated _Wandering Jew_--and it was always: "Dis donc, Maurice!--prête-moi ton _Ivanhoé_!" (with an accent on the e), whenever he had to construe his twenty lines of Valtère Scott--and what a hash he made of them! Sometimes M. Brossard himself would come, smoking his big meerschaum, and help the English class during preparation, and put us up to a thing or two worth knowing. "Rapaud, comment dit-on '_pouvoir_' en anglais?" "Sais pas, m'sieur!" "Comment, petit crétin, tu ne sais pas!" And Rapaud would receive a _pincée tordue_--a "twisted pinch"--on the back of his arm to quicken his memory. "Oh, là, là!" he would howl--"je n' sais pas!" "Et toi, Maurice?" "Ça se dit '_to be able_,' m'sieur!" I would say. "Mais non, mon ami--tu oublies ta langue natale--ça se dit, '_to can_'! Maintenant, comment dirais-tu en anglais, '_je voudrais pouvoir_'?" "Je dirais, '_I would like to be able._'" "Comment, encore! petit cancre! allons--tu es Anglais--tu sais bien que tu dirais, '_I vould vill to can_'!" Then M. Brossard turns to Barty: "A ton tour, Josselin!" "Moi, m'sieur?" says Barty. "Oui, toi!--comment dirais-tu, '_je pourrais vouloir_'?" "Je dirais '_I vould can to vill_,'" says Barty, quite unabashed. "À la bonne heure! au moins tu sais ta langue, toi!" says Père Brossard, and pats him on the cheek; while Barty winks at me, the wink of successful time-serving hypocrisy, and Bonneville writhes with suppressed delight. What lives most in my remembrance of that summer is the lovely weather we had, and the joy of the Passy swimming-bath every Thursday and Sunday from two till five or six; it comes back to me even now in heavenly dreams by night. I swim with giant side-strokes all round the Île des Cygnes between Passy and Grenelle, where the École de Natation was moored for the summer months. Round and round the isle I go, up stream and down, and dive and float and wallow with bliss there is no telling--till the waters all dry up and disappear, and I am left wading in weeds and mud and drift and drought and desolation, and wake up shivering--and such is life.