Page:Malot - Nobodys Boy, Crewe-Jones, 1916.djvu/286

 also was quite possible; the lessons were not a success. Often I got angry and, shutting the book with a bang, told him that he was a thickhead.

"That's true," he said, smiling; "my head is only soft when it's banged. Garofoli found out that!"

How could one keep angry at this reply. I laughed and we went on with the lessons. But with music, from the beginning, he made astonishing progress. In the end, he so confused me with his questions, that I was obliged to confess that I could not teach him any more. This confession mortified me exceedingly. I had been a very proud professor, and it was humiliating for me not to be able to answer my pupil's questions. And he did not spare me, oh, no!

"I'd like to go and take one lesson from a real master," he said, "only just one, and I'll ask him all the questions that I want answered."

"Why didn't you take this lesson from a real master while I was in the mine?"

"Because I didn't want to take what he would charge out of your money."

I was hurt when Mattia had spoken thus of a _real_ master, but my absurd vanity could not hold out against his last words.

"You're a good boy," I said; "my money is your money; you earn it also, and more than I, very often. You can take as many lessons as you like, and I'll take them with you."

The master, the real master that we required,