MS-WU-MSS008-3-50-2

[3321] It was the summer holidays. [3322] His school ^cap was green with ^[₰]
initials and a boar's head, or a deer's, in gold braid on the front. [3323] It
lay p^lumb on his big blond skull as precise as a lid on a pot. [3325] There is
something about this strict sit of hats and caps that never fails to
exasperate me. [3326] As for his raincoat, instead of carrying it folded over
his arm, or flung across his shoulder, as I had told him, he had rolled it
in a ball and was holding it with both hands, on his belly.

[3327] There he was
before me, his big feet splayed, his knees sagging, his stomach sticking
out, his chest receding, his chin in the air, his mouth open, in the
attitude of a veritable half-wit. [3328] I myself must have looked as if only
the support of my umbrella and the wicket were keeping me from falling.
[3329] I managed finally to articulate, Are you capable of following me^? [3330] He did
not answer.

[3331] But I seized his thoughts as clearly as if he had spoken them,
namely, And you, are you capable of leading me? [3332] Midnight struck, from the
steeple of my beloved church. [3333] It did not matter. [3334] I was gone from home.
[3335] I ^sought in my mind, where all I need is to be found, ^[₰] what treasur-
-ed possession ^he was likely to have about him. [3336] I hope, I said you have
not forgotten your scout-knife, we might need it.

[3337] This knife comprised,
apart from the five or six ^{indispensable} blades, a cork-screw, a tin-opener, a
punch, a screw-driver, a claw^{, [⁁]a gouge for removing stones from hooves} and I know not what other futilities besides.
[3338] I had given it to him myself, on the occasion of his first first prize
for history and geography, subjects which, at the school he attended, were
for obscure reasons regarded as inseparable.

[3339] The veriest dunce when it
came to literature and the so-called exact sciences, he had no equal for
the dates of battles, revolutions, restorations and other exploits of the
human race, in its slow ascension towards the light, and for the
configuration of frontiers and the heights of mountain peaks. [3340] He
deserved his scout-knife. [3341] Don't tell me you've left it behind, I said.