The Superintendent, with his large, flat face and the sly waysof a peasant turned monk, was a constant thorn in Jean's side.
"_Be firm, be firm, sir_," was his parable every day, andhe never missed an opportunity of doing the usher an ill turnwith the Director.
The early days of Jean's servitude had slipped by in an enervatingmonotony. With his quiet ways, tactful temper and air of kindlyaloofness, he was popular with the more sensible boys, whilethe others left him in peace, as he did them. But there was oneexception; Henri de Grizolles, a handsome young savage, proudof his aristocratic name, which he scribbled in big letters onhis light trousers, and overjoyed at the chance of hurting aninferior's feelings, had from the very first day declared waragainst the poor usher. He used to empty ink-bottles into hisdesk, stick cobbler's wax on his chair, and let off crackersin the middle of school.
Hearing the disturbance, the Superintendent would march in withthe airs of a Police Inspector and bid Jean: "_Be firm, sir!
be firm!_"Far from taking his advice, Jean affected an excessive easiness oftemper. One day he caught a boy in the act of drawing a caricatureof himself; he picked it up and glanced at it, then handed itback to the artist with a shrug of the shoulders.
Such mildness was misconstrued and only weakened his authority.
The usher's miseries grew acute, and he lost the patience thatalleviated his sufferings. He could not put up with the lads'
restlessness, their happy laughter and light-hearted enjoymentof life. He showed temper, venting his spite on mere acts ofthoughtlessness or simple ebullitions of high spirits. Then he wouldfall into a sort of torpor. He had long fits of absentmindedness,during which he was deaf to every noise. It became the fashionto keep birds, plait nets, shoot arrows, and crow like a cockin Monsieur Jean Servien's class-room. Even the boys from otherdivisions would slip out of their own classrooms to peep in atthe windows of this one, about which such amazing stories weretold, and the ceiling of which was decorated with little figuresswinging at the end of a string stuck to the plaster with chewedpaper.
De Grizolles had installed a regular Roman catapult for shootingkidney-beans at the usher's head.
Jean would drive the young gentleman out of the room. TheSuperintendent of Studies would reinstate him, only to be turnedout again. And each time meant a fresh report to the Director.
The Abbé Bordier, who never found patience to hear the worthySuperintendent out to the end, could only throw up his hands toheaven and declare they would be the death of him between them.
But the impression became fixed in his mind that the Assistantin charge of the _Remove_ was a source of trouble.