rielle
of her head, lifted and thrown back on a plump neck, showed a pair of bright eyes and good teeth between pouting lips. She glided, merry and alert, into the place Jean made for her without a word. The man with the guitar sang a ballad about caged birds and blossoms in flower-pots. "_Mine_," observed the work-girl to Jean, "are carnations, and I have birds too--canaries they are." At the moment he was thinking of some fair-faced chatelaine roaming under the battlements of a donjon. The work-girl went on: "I have a pair,--you understand, to keep each other company. Two is a nice number, don't you think so?" He marched off with his visions under the old trees of the Avenue. After a turn or two up and down, he espied the little work-girl hanging on the arm of a handsome young fellow, fashionably dressed, wearing a heavy gold watch-chain. Her admirer was catching her by the waist in the dusk of the trees, and she was laughing. Then Jean Servien felt sorry he had scorned her advances. XIX Jean was called up for examination, but with his insufficient preparation he got hopelessly fogged in the intricacies of a difficult, tricky piece of dictation and sums that were too long to be worked in the time allowed the candidates. He came home in despair. His father tried in his good-nature to reassure him. But a fortnight after came an unstamped letter summoning him to the Ministry, and after a three hours' wait he was shown into Monsieur Bargemont's private room. He recognized his own dictation in the big man's hand. "I am sorry," the functionary began, "to inform you that you have entirely failed to pass the tests set you. You do not know the language of your own country, sir; you write _Maisons-Lafitte_ without an 's' to _Maisons_. You cannot spell! and what is more, you do not cross your 't's.' You _must_ know at your age that a 't' ought to be crossed. It's past understanding, sir!" And striking fiercel
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