The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard

  October 3.

  This Thursday being a school-holiday I had teh chance of meeting thethree little Mouton girls in the vicinity of the Rue Demours. Afterbowing to their mother, I asked the eldest who appears to be about tenyears old, how was her playmate, Mademoiselle Jeanne Alexandre.

  The little Mouton girl answered me, all in a breath,

  "Jeanne Alexandre is not my playmate. She is only kept in the school forcharity--so they make her sweep the class-rooms. It was Mademoiselle whosaid so. And Jeanne Alexandre is a bad girl; so they lock her up in thedark room--and it serves her right--and I am a good girl--and I am neverlocked up in the dark room."

  The three little girls resumed their walk, and Madame Mouton followedclose behind them, looking back over her broad shoulder at me, in a verysuspicious manner.

  Alas! I find myself reduced to expedients of a questionable character.Madame de Gabry will not come back to Paris for at least three monthsmore, at the very soonest. Without her, I have no tact, I have no commonsense--I am nothing but a cumbersome, clumsy, mischief-making machine.

  Nevertheless, I cannot possibly permit them to make Jeanne aboarding-school servant!