XLIII. MY FATHER IS SATISFIED.

When I discovered that my coat had not suffered in the fray I was quite contented, and I returned home whistling as I went, for the first time since I had been to college. What balm victory spreads upon our wounds! By the time I reached our house I merely seemed to feel a little stiffness in my left eye. My father was quite right when he said that nothing was easier than to give a blow with your fist. Nothing is easier, and nothing easier than to receive one. In the twinkling of an eye I had given one and had it returned; though, for the life of me, I could not say how it came about: and I do not therefore intend to give a lecture upon the subject.

I would not have told my parents what had taken place for anything in the world: they would have been sure to ask what I had fought about, and they would have felt hurt had they known the reason. My mother, seeing that I appeared troubled at her anxious inquiries about my black eye, and that my replies were evasive, thought it wiser not to question me further; and my father dreamed so little that his poor coward of a son could have received his wounds in battle that he imagined every possible reason for them rather than the true one.

The news was now spread in the college that Bicquerot was decidedly eccentric, that he had curious fancies, and this was why they thought so. I had allowed them all, even the very little boys, to call me all sorts of names and I had taken no notice, but had appeared meek and gentle to a fault: I had been called Azor, Toucan and Borniquet, and had not stirred, but being once called a beetle! my nature was changed, I became furious, and hit out right and left, in the blindness of my rage.

At the end of the term my father almost fell off his chair when reading my report from the college. All was well enough till he arrived at the remarks upon my general conduct, and then came the words “Very bad.”

“What does this mean?” inquired my father in an angry tone of voice, marking, with his thumb, the objectionable adjective. As I did not reply, he read on the next page the following words, “quarrelsome and fond of fighting.” He appeared stupefied. Could it be possible that my conduct was described as very bad, because of my love of fighting? He turned to me, and resting his first finger on my chest, exclaimed, “You! You have fought! Is it true?”

“Yes, papa,” I answered.

“Were you beaten?” he then inquired.

“No,” said I; “I gave some blows with my fist, and had some given back to me.”

“Real good blows?” cried my father, “bang, bang?”

“Real good blows,” I answered.

“Often?” he asked.

“Well, yes, pretty often,” said I.

“What a young rascal!” said my father, pretending to pinch my ear; and in a whisper he continued: “kiss me, my boy!”