The study was hushed; M. Dumollard was _de service_ as _maître d'études_, although there was no attempt to do anything but sadly read improving books. If I remember aright, René, a very sentimental young Frenchman, who had loved the wrong person not wisely, but too well (a very wrong person indeed, in his case), emigrated to North America, and there he met a beautiful Indian maiden, one Atala, of the Natchez tribe, who had rosy heels and was charming, and whose entire skin was probably a warm dark red, although this is not insisted upon. She also had a brother, whose name was Outogamiz. Well, René loved Atala, Atala loved René, and they were married; and Outogamiz went through some ceremony besides, which made him blood brother and bosom friend to René--a bond which involved certain obligatory rites and duties and self-sacrifices. Atala died and was buried. René died and was buried also; and every day, as in duty bound, poor Outogamiz went and pricked a vein and bled over Rene's tomb, till he died himself of exhaustion before he was many weeks older. I quote entirely from memory. This simple story was told in very touching and beautiful language, by no means telegraphese, and Barty and I were deeply affected by it. "I say, Bob!" Barty whispered to me, with a break in his voice, "some day I'll marry your sister, and we'll all go off to America together, and she'll die, and _I_'ll die, and you shall bleed yourself to death on my tomb!" "No," said I, after a moment's thought. "No--look here! _I_'ll marry _your_ sister, and _I_'ll die, and _you_ shall bleed over _my_ tomb!" Then, after a pause: "I haven't got a sister, as you know quite well--and if I had she wouldn't be for _you_!" says Barty. "Why not?" "Because you're not good-looking enough!" says Barty. At this, just for fun, I gave him a nudge in the wind with my elbow--and he gave me a "twisted pinch" on the arm--and I kicked him on the ankle, but so much harder than I intended that it hurt him, and he gave me a tremendous box on the ear, and we set to fighting like a couple of wild-cats, without even getting up, to the scandal of the whole study and the indignant disgust of M. Dumollard, who separated us, and read us a pretty lecture: "Voilà bien les Anglais!--rien n'est sacré pour eux, pas même la mort! rien que les chiens et les chevaux." (Nothing, not even death, is sacred to Englishmen--nothing but dogs and horses.) When we went up to bed the head-boy of the school--a first-rate boy called d'Orthez, and Berquin (another first-rate boy), who had each a bedroom to himself, came into the dormitory and took up the quarrel, and discussed what should be done. Both of us were English--ergo, both of us ought to box away the insult with our fists; so "they set a combat us between, to fecht it in the dawing"--that is, just after breakfast, in the school-room. I went to bed very unhappy, and so, I think, did Barty.