The only event of any importance in Barty's life that year was his first communion, which he took with several others of about his own age. An event that did not seem to make much impression on him--nothing seemed to make much impression on Barty Josselin when he was very young. He was just a lively, irresponsible, irrepressible human animal--always in perfect health and exuberant spirits, with an immense appetite for food and fun and frolic; like a squirrel, a collie pup, or a kitten. Père Bonamy, the priest who confirmed him, was fonder of the boy than of any one, boy or girl, that he had ever prepared for communion, and could hardly speak of him with decent gravity, on account of his extraordinary confessions--all of which were concocted in the depths of Barty's imagination for the sole purpose of making the kind old curé laugh; and the kind old curé was just as fond of laughing as was Barty of playing the fool, in and out of season. I wonder if he always thought himself bound to respect the secrets of the confessional in Barty's case! And Barty would sing to him--even in the confessional: "Stabat mater dolorosa Juxta crucem lachrymosa Dum pendebat fllius" ... in a voice so sweet and innocent and pathetic that it would almost bring the tears to the good old curé's eyelash. "Ah! ma chère Mamzelle Marceline!" he would say--"au moins s'ils étaient tous comme ce petit Josselin! çà irait comme sur des roulettes! Il est innocent comme un jeune veau, ce mioche anglais! Il a le bon Dieu dans le coeur!" "Et une boussole dans l'estomac!" said Mlle. Marceline. I don't think he was quite so _innocent_ as all that, perhaps--but no young beast of the field was ever more _harmless_. That year the examinations were good all round; even _I_ did not disgrace myself, and Barty was brilliant. But there were no delightful holidays for me to record. Barty went to Yorkshire, and I remained in Paris with my mother. There is only one thing more worth mentioning that year. My father had inherited from _his_ father a system of shorthand, which he called _Blaze_--I don't know why! _His_ father had learnt it of a Dutch Jew. It is, I think, the best kind of cipher ever invented (I have taken interest in these things and studied them). It is very difficult to learn, but I learnt it as a child--and it was of immense use to me at lectures we used to attend at the Sorbonne and Collège de France. Barty was very anxious to know it, and after some trouble I obtained my father's permission to impart this calligraphic crypt to Barty, on condition he should swear on his honor never to reveal it: and this he did.