2 STORIES FROM DAUDET

cising. All this attracted me much
more than the rules about participles ;
but I had the strength to resist and
ran quickly towards the school.

In passing before the mayoralty I
saw that a number of people were
stopping before the little grating where
notices are posted up. For two
years past it was there we learnt all the
bad news, the battles lost, the requisi-
tions, the orders of the commandant ;
so I thought to myself without stop-
ping: ‘What can it be now?’ Then,
as I was running across the square, the
blacksmith Wachter, who was there
with his apprentice, just going to read
the notice, cried out to me:

‘Don’t be in such a hurry, little one,
you will be quite early enough for your
school.’

I thought he was making fun of me,
and I was quite out of breath when I
entered M. Hamel’s little courtyard.

Generally, at the beginning of the
class, there was a great uproar which one