But we did this once too often--for M. Dumollard had been looking at Venus with his telescope (I _think_ it was Venus) one morning before sunrise, and spied us out _en flagrant délit_; perhaps with that very telescope. Anyhow, he pounced on us when we came back. And our punishment would have been extremely harsh but for Barty, who turned it all into a joke. After breakfast M. Mérovée pronounced a very severe sentence on us under the acacia. I forget what it was--but his manner was very short and dignified, and he walked away very stiffly towards the door of the étude. Barty ran after him without noise, and just touching his shoulders with the tips of his fingers, cleared him at a bound from behind, as one clears a post. M. Mérovée, in a _real_ rage this time, forgot his dignity, and pursued him all over the school--through open windows and back again--into his own garden (Tusculum)--over trellis railings--all along the top of a wall--and finally, quite blown out, sat down on the edge of the tank: the whole school was in fits by this time, even M. Dumollard--and at last Mérovée began to laugh too. So the thing had to be forgiven--but only that once! Once also, that year, but in the winter, a great compliment was paid to la perfide Albion in the persons of MM. Josselin et Maurice, which I cannot help recording with a little complacency. On a Thursday walk in the Bois de Boulogne a boy called out "À bas Dumollard!" in a falsetto squeak. Dumollard, who was on duty that walk, was furious, of course--but he couldn't identify the boy by the sound of his voice. He made his complaint to M. Mérovée--and next morning, after prayers, Mérovée came into the school-room, and told us he should go the round of the boys there and then, and ask each boy separately to own up if it were he who had uttered the seditious cry. "And mind you!" he said--"you are all and each of you on your 'word of honor'--_l'étude entière_!" So round he went, from boy to boy, deliberately fixing each boy with his eye, and severely asking--"Est-ce _toi_?" "Est-ce _toi_?" "Est-ce _toi_?" etc., and waiting very deliberately indeed for the answer, and even asking for it again if it were not given in a firm and audible voice. And the answer was always, "Non, m'sieur, ce n'est pas moi!" But when he came to each of _us_ (Josselin and me) he just mumbled his "Est-ce toi?" in a quite perfunctory voice, and didn't even wait for the answer! When he got to the last boy of all, who said "Non, m'sieur," like all the rest, he left the room, saying, tragically (and, as I thought, rather theatrically for _him_): "Je m'en vais le coeur navré--il y a un lâche parmi vous!" (My heart is harrowed--there's a coward among you.) There was an awkward silence for a few moments.