.. vous dev-ez voir notre pet-it fils...._")--used to start up and cry
out, taking B. by one arm and me by the other,
"_Allons, mes amis! Chan-tons 'Quackquackquack_.'"
Whereupon we would join in the following song, which Monsieur Auguste had
taught us with great care, and whose renditions gave him unspeakable
delight:
"_Un canard, deployant chez elle
(Quackquackquack)
Il disait a sa canard fidele
(Quackquackquack)
Il disait (Quackquackquack)
Il faisait (Quackquackquack)
Quand_" (spelling mine)
"_finirons nos desseins,
Quack.
Quack.
Quack.
Quack."
I suppose I will always puzzle over the ecstasies of That Wonderful Duck.
And how Monsieur Auguste, the merest gnome of a man, would bend backwards
in absolute laughter at this song's spirited conclusion upon a note so
low as to wither us all.
Then, too, the Schoolmaster.
A little fragile old man. His trousers were terrifically too big for him.
When he walked (in an insecure and frightened way) his trousers did the
most preposterous wrinkles. If he leaned against a tree in the _cour_,
with a very old and also fragile pipe in his pocket--the stem (which
looked enormous in contrast to the owner) protruding therefrom--his
three-sizes too big collar would leap out so as to make his wizened neck
appear no thicker than the white necktie which flowed upon his two-sizes
too big shirt.
Pages:
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164