Chapter I: WENT to bed that night with the best intentions in the world, and with

my head resting on the pillow I formed thousands of projects, one more daring than the other, so that I might show my parents how much I loved them and how hard I tried to please them. When my mother came up to tuck me into my little bed, as she did every night, and stooped over me to kiss me, I threw my arms round her neck and drawing her quite close whispered in her ear: “I do so love you!”

“Darling little fellow!” she answered, resting her cheek against mine.

I was so excited that I could not go to sleep for a long time. I kept turning over in my mind a most daring project, a most audacious deed which I was determined to perform. Yes, I was determined I would walk into the garden the next day and beard the little bantam-cock. How surprised he would be to see me come up to him without the least fear. Ah! it would be his turn to be afraid now. Yes, I would just open the door leading from the corridor, open it quite wide! then I would walk up to the apricot tree: walk straight up to it without hurrying, or trembling. Then he would come up to me; I should just appear as if I did not see he was there. Then what would he do? He would most likely fly at me. Very well, let him; but I would raise my hand at the moment he began his attack, and I would give him such a blow with my fist that he would not forget it in a hurry. But then, perhaps he would give me a terrible peck, the vicious little horror! Pooh, what of that? I could easily prevent it!

Having come to this conclusion, I at last fell asleep. My plan was to get up early the next morning without making any noise; to go downstairs and into the garden before anyone was about, for I did not wish people to witness my exploit. I was determined to try if I could not carry my project out with courage and success; but I could not be quite sure how matters would turn out, so I would rather have my first battle over without a witness.

When I opened my eyes the next morning, it was broad daylight. I jumped out of bed, said my prayers, and dressed as fast as I could.

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XVI.

MY PROJECT IS DEFERRED.

FROM the staircase, down which I bounded two or three steps at a time, I could hear the cock-a-doodle-doo of my enemy. His shrill voice seemed to pierce through one’s head, it was such a self-satisfied, such a confident tone of voice, that as I listened I seemed to hesitate in my design of bearding the little cock. However, after a moment I regained my courage, and I said to him—just as if he could hear me,—“Hollo, Mr. Cock, in five minutes you won’t hold your cockscomb quite so high!”

As valour need not altogether exclude prudence, I thought it wise to take my father’s fishing-rod with me. And I drew my cap well down over my eyes.

As I entered the kitchen I found my mother already there; she was engaged in picking lentils and removing the little pebbles which clung to them.

“Are you going out fishing?” she asked laughingly.

“No, mamma, I was only going—” Then it occurred to me that I had determined I would not tell anybody of my audacious project—that my intended victory over the bantam was to be a profound secret until I was the undoubted conqueror. I bit my tongue and prudently cut the sentence short. As I never told a lie, I did not give a word of explanation.

“Put down the fishing-rod,” said my mother without paying any attention to my evident embarrassment; “take off your cap, and come and help me.”

I hastened to obey her, and, to tell the truth, I am ashamed to say I felt some satisfaction in putting off for a day or two, the duty, which I had imposed upon myself, of teaching a lesson to that impudent little cock. He, in the meantime, seemed to crow over my infirmity of purpose, for his cock-a-doodle-doo sounded more loudly than ever all over the place. “Ah!” said I to myself, “you will lose nothing by waiting; you would certainly have caught it by this time, I can tell you, if I had not been kept in.” At that moment my mother went out of the kitchen.

Instigated by a feeling of curiosity to see what was going on inside the kitchen—or, perhaps, with a baser motive of crowing over me, the little bantam suddenly flew on the ledge outside the kitchen window, and putting his head first on one side, and then the other, looked impertinently through the panes of glass into the kitchen.

“Take that!” cried I; and seizing a handful of lentils, I threw them against the window. It sounded like a shower of hail. The bantam gave a hoarse scream of terror, flapped his wings, and disappeared. The rascal, I have not a doubt, paid the chickens off for the fright I caused him, as I heard them uttering piercing cries soon afterwards.

I carefully picked up the lentils, and set to work cleaning them again, feeling quite pleased with my exploit.

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XVII.

SCIENTIFIC REFLECTIONS ON MY NOSE MADE BY DR. LOMBALOT.

“THAT is very nicely done,” said my mother, on her return to the kitchen. “You are a good helpful little boy; and now go and put on your best suit for breakfast, as somebody is coming.”

This somebody was Dr. Lombalot, the old surgeon-major of my father’s former regiment. When he retired from the army he settled at Tours. He was to arrive by an early train.

“He is a great original,” said my mother, “but your father likes him very much.”

He was indeed an original! He had all sorts of theories upon various subjects and systems of doing things, which he always made out must be right. For instance, he never ate a boiled egg like the rest of the world, and he proved that the rest of the world was wrong in the way it ate them. “Omelettes, yes, Ma’am, omelettes,” said he, looking at my mother across the breakfast table, “omelettes ought to be done in a certain particular way known only to myself; but I am willing to give the receipt”—here he made a little bow to my mother,—“and you should _always_ pour in the oil before the vinegar in making a salad,”—here he twinkled his eye maliciously at my father, who was mixing a salad, and had just poured in the vinegar first.

One of his theories was, he informed us, that neither men nor boys should wear braces. And then he announced that people should always walk upstairs backwards, so as not to get out of breath. Here I unfortunately swallowed some coffee the wrong way, and choked myself, because I was bursting with laughter; the doctor wiped his spectacles, and putting them on, stared at my nose, which I felt turn pale.

“And phrenology?” said my father hastily, wishing to divert his attention, “you still study phrenology?”

The doctor did not appear to hear the question, his eyes were fixed on my unfortunate nose. At last he uttered the words “_Remarkably_ strange!”

“What is strange?” enquired my father. The doctor did not at once reply: lifting up his right hand, he held it before him, moving it first further and then nearer to him, as if he was trying to get an exact point of sight to suit him. When he held it still, the back was towards me, and it hid half his face. His eyes peeped over it as if he was looking over a wall or as if he was plunged in water to the tip of his nose.

We all gazed at him in great surprise and some consternation. As for him, he quietly continued his operations, figuratively pulling me to pieces: his eyes became quite small, and puckers and wrinkles appeared at the corners.

“Not the least affinity,” said he, in a few seconds, “between the different features in that face. I take the nose” (here he made a sort of telescope with his closed fist), “a warlike nose! I hide it” (he hid himself again behind his wall until I saw only his two eyes), “and I see a meek forehead, and a timid eye. I look at them altogether again” (here the wall disappeared), “and what a strange contrast is before me! That martial nose and that timid physiognomy! that poor face! which is quite ashamed to have such a nose attached to it, a nose almost.... What was I going to say? however, no matter. It is just as if you saw a gentle, peaceable, good-natured shop-keeper giving his arm in the street to some violent, insolent blusterer. Absurd contrast! a caricaturist would be delighted to meet with that boy!”

“But,” said my father impatiently, “do tell us something about phrenology!”

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XVIII.