Go there, you simpleton!" The blackbird flew away, and the university tree, once more solitary and alone, drooped its dispirited leaves.

Amedee, in his confused childish desire for information, was just ready to ask why this sycamore looked so morose, when the door opened and M.Batifol appeared.

The master of the school had a severe aspect, in spite of his almost indecorous name.
He resembled a hippopotamus clothed in an ample black coat.

He entered slowly and bowed in a dignified way to M.Violette, then seated himself in a leather armchair before his papers, and, taking off his velvet skull-cap, revealed such a voluminous round, yellow baldness that little Amedee compared it with terror to the globe on the top of his desk.
It was just the same thing! These two round balls were twins! There was even upon M.Batifol's cranium an eruption of little red pimples, grouped almost exactly like an archipelago in the Pacific Ocean.
"Whom have I the honor-- ?" asked the schoolmaster, in an unctuous voice, an excellent voice for proclaiming names at the distribution of prizes.
M.Violette was not a brave man.

It was very foolish, but when the senior clerk called him into his office to do some work, he was always seized with a sort of stammering and shaking of the limbs.