A curly headed little boy, with eyes sparkling with malice, and a tiny turned-up nose, came close up to me and said: “Don’t you intend to give it back to me?”

“What do you mean?” I asked in surprise.

“You know very well,” he answered, looking more impertinent than ever.

“But I assure you I do not,” replied I.

“My nose; you know you have taken my share as well as your own, and it’s very nasty of you,” said this disagreeable child.

I reddened and turned away from him. The boy on the other side of me seized the opportunity of my turning towards him, to say: “My little Borniquet.”

“Not Borniquet but Bicquerot!” I corrected.

“Ah, that’s true,” he went on. “But, my little Borniquet, tell me, what is it made of?”

I guessed that he alluded to my nose, and I shrugged my shoulders.<............