Page:De Amicis - Heart, translation Hapgood, 1922.djvu/147

 “Some day,” said Precossi to me, “you shall come to the shop to see my father at work. I will give you some nails.”

My mother put a little bunch of flowers into Garrone's button-hole, for him to carry to his mother in her name. Garrone said, “Thank you,” in his big voice, without raising his chin from his breast. But all his kind and noble soul shone in his eyes.

Saturday, 11th.

The idea of Carlo Nobis rubbing off his sleeve affectedly, when Precossi touches him in passing! That fellow is pride personified because his father is a rich man. But Derossi's father is rich too. Nobis would like to have a bench to himself; he is afraid that the rest will soil it; he looks down on everybody and always has a scornful smile on his lips: woe to him who stumbles over his foot, when we go out in files two by two! For a mere trifle he flings an insulting word in your face, or a threat to get his father to come to the school. It is true that his father did give him a good lesson when he called the little son of the charcoal-man a ragamuffin. I have never seen so disagreeable a schoolboy! No one speaks to him, no one says good-bye to him when he goes out; there is not even a dog who would prompt him when he does not know his lesson. He cannot endure any one, and he pretends to despise Derossi more than all, because he is the head boy; and Garrone, because he is beloved by