THE SON OF THE BLACKSMITH-IRONMONGER.Yes, but I also esteem Precossi; and to say that I esteem him is not enough,—Precossi, the son of the blacksmith-ironmonger,—that thin little fellow, who has kind, melancholy eyes and a frightened air; who is so timid that he says to every one, “Excuse me”; who is always sickly, and who, nevertheless, studies so much. His father returns home, intoxicated with brandy, and beats him without the slightest reason in the world, and flings his books and his copy-books in the air with a backward turn of his hand; and he comes to school with the black and blue marks on his face, and sometimes with his face all swollen, and his eyes inflamed with much weeping. But never, never can he be made to acknowledge that his father beats him.
“Your father has been beatin
