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Updated: June 5, 2025
"Indeed it would be a big thing of which you might boast all your life: I, a planton, shot and killed a six-year-old child in a tree." "C'est enmerdant," the planton countered, in some confusion "he may be trying to escape. How do I know?" "Indeed, how do you know anything?" the father murmured quietly. "It's a mystere." The Imp, all at once, fell. He hit the muddy ground with a disagreeable thud.
The cautious watcher of the skies was not, however, to be fooled by any such fol-de-rol and stood his ground. Fortunately at this point the beefy planton yelled from the doorway "Let him in," and I was accordingly let in, to the gratification of my friends, and against the better judgment of the guardian of the cour, who muttered something about having more than enough to do already.
And I wonder to this day that the only letter of mine which ever reached America and my doting family should have been posted by this highly entertaining personage en ville, whither he went as a trusted inhabitant of La Ferte to do a few necessary errands for himself; whither he returned with a good deal of colour in his cheeks and a good deal of vin rouge in his guts; going and returning with Tommy, the planton who brought him The Daily Mail every day until Bragard couldn't afford it, after which either B. and I or Jean le Negre took it off Tommy's hands Tommy, for whom we had a delightful name which I sincerely regret being unable to tell, Tommy, who was an Englishman for all his French planton's uniform and worshipped the ground on which the Count stood; Tommy, who looked like a boiled lobster and had tears in his eyes when he escorted his idol back to captivity.... Mirabile dictu, so it was.
One day somebody and I were "catching water" for Monsieur the Chef. "Catching water" was ordinarily a mixed pleasure. A planton always escorted the catchers through a big door, between the stone wall, which backed the men's cour and the end of the building itself, or, in other words, the canteen.
I mounted with a planton to find Jean in hysterics, speechless, his eyes starting out of his head. The planton in question who looked particularly innocent denied this charge upon my explaining Jean's version; while the Gestionnaire puffed and grumbled, disclaiming any connection with the alleged theft and protesting sonorously that he was hearing about Jean's sixty francs for the first time.
When the planton announced la soupe, a fiercely weary face strode by me en route to his mattress and his spoon. I knew that B. had been careful. A minute later he joined me, and told me as much.... On the way downstairs we ran into the Surveillant. Bragard stepped from the ranks and poured upon the Surveillant a torrent of French, of which the substance was: you told them not to give me anything.
Finally, shrieking in agony, he rushed to the nearest window; and while the Sheeneys together pommelled him yelled for help to the planton beneath. The unparalleled consternation and applause produced by this one-sided battle had long since alarmed the authorities. At the first sound of the door the two Sheeneys had fled, and were now playing the part of innocent spectators.
Probably the furious planton had seen to it that les femmes kept their rooms in silence. We ascended the three flights at the farther end of the corridor, the planton of all plantons unlocked and unbolted the door at the top landing, and I was swallowed by The Enormous Room. I made for B., in my excitement allowing myself to wave the bank-notes. Instantly a host had gathered at my side.
"Don't be sad, my little son, everybody falls out of trees, they're made for that by God," and he patted The Imp, squatting in the mud and smiling. In five minutes The Imp was trying to scale the shed. "Come down or I fire," the planton cried nervously ... and so it was with The Wanderer's son from morning till night.
At this moment les femmes descendaient, it was their corvee d'eau, vous savez. He saw them, le noir. One of them cried from the stairs, Is a Frenchman stronger than you, Jean? The plantons were standing around him, the Surveillant was behind. He took the nearest planton, and tossed him down the corridor so that he struck against the door at the end of it.
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