The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-01-17

three days-a remarkable circumstance in the life of such an impassioned worker.
 The story Is tragic and distressing, but enthralling. The troubles of Jack be- come the troubles of the reader. His un- happy destiny weighs on the reader as if 1t were one personal to him. Few books achieve this.
 Like his other novel, "Le Petit Chose" the story reminds the English reader of David Copperf1eld; but the resemblance Is only incidental. Style, action and consum- nation are typically Daudet-the work of poet who writes in prose.
 XVT HEN his royal highness of Da- N/ honey became ap upil of Mo
 W ronval's Gymnase in Paris, the fortune of that shabby and melancholy institution of learning seemed made. Fvariste Moronval had come to Franee from Guadeloupe, full of ambition and greed He had dreamed of repeating In paris the successes that had made him great man in the little black seaport. But Paris paid no attention to the great Evariste Moronval of the dark eolnpleN- ion. and he became one of the army or noor devils. starving and proud, one or those professors of anything who ramoie uselessly through the streets.
 Ono day fortune threw into his way the ,nformation that ship captains coming from foreign countries often brought With them the sons of rich natives to be edu- catad in Paris. Moronval seized the idea. The Gymnase Moronval was the result.
 During the first year he gathered as pupils two little savages from the Guinea coast, and then the, nephew of the Imah of Zanzibar. These little folk were well supplied with money, quite ignorant or its value and entirely helpless, since ther white guardians were away on long Voy- ages most of the time.
 As soon as the Gymnase MoronVal was thus launched, a volunteer faculty nocked around it's director. Dr. Hirsch, a doctor without a diploma, became professor Of sciences and mathematics. The great Poet Amaury d 'Argenton, a poet without an editor or an audience, became profess sor of literature. The great Labassindre, a singer without an engagement, installed himself in the post of professor of sing ing. Like Moronval, these unrecognized geniuses were furious against society that would not honor them or even throw them pennies.
 Everywhere in the world there are groups of such imitation talents. They find each other as surely as iron filings find a magnet. They draw together, prop each other up by their complaints, their cravings, their idle and sterile vanity. Filled with mutual contempt of each other they still cannot exist apart, for they need to hear themselves boast, they must read their poems, their wild essays they' must sing their jumbled songs.
 That these professors could not teach anything was not a point of importance. The little savages neither knew nor cared. They were pleased with their academic uniforms of a wonderful military appear ance. bedizened with gold lace to the el- bows.
 Unfortunately, remittances had queer habit of ceasing suddenly after a few quarters. The tenure of the great in savage land evidently was insecure. Thus the Gymnase Moronval had to live in the old haphazard way of their conee room and boulevard existences.
 The ebb was turned to golden flood by the arrival of the son of Dahomey's King. Little Madou became a mine Of wealth for the Gymnase. They exhibited and naraded him, boasted in all the cafes of their royal pupil and planned what they should do when he returned to Dahomey.
 They would all go out with him-that was certain Labassindre saw hlmseH singing to the assembled wealth Of Da- honey and pillaging the treasury as those humbugs, the popular favorites in French opera. were pillaging Paris. pr. Hirsch saw himself the physician of the king dom. carving out his fantastic ideas in medicine which the jealous police or France would not let him try. Moronval saw himself a ruler of men at last, and loneed already to punish them.
 Poor little Madou, ignorant of all these vaulting ambitions, impervious to all ed- ucation. longed only for his palms ana deserts and for his wonderful Aunt Ker- ,ka strong and beautiful and terrible, who was general in command or the Am azons and whom Madou loved more than anything in the world.
 Madou had been in the Gymnase for some months when all the dreams or tho faculty were puffed out in an instant The great King of Dahomey was de- feated and captured by the Ashantees. The royal army was dispersed. The Am- azons were massacred. Kerika herself was hiding in the wilderness.
 Mora immediately bitter was the cessa- tion of the rivulet of gold that had irri- gated the parched, unrecognized geniuses. Their sufferings moved them to righteous wrath against the cause of 1t all With robla independence they renounced their unworthy allegience to royalty and cast the little King into outer darkness, not without generous kicks and cuffs
 Admired and respected pupil no more, he became the household drudge. They stripped him of his gallant tunic and dressed him in the tattered and limiting raiment of a lackey Thereafter the last descendant of the magnificent monarch of pahomey made the fires, swept the rooms and carried home the provisions.
 However, he brought one last piece of fortune to the Gymnase Moronval even after his fall beautiful young person came to Paris and was installed in an elegant little house in the Boulevard Haussmann. She looked around for a school to which she might fntrust her darling son Jack. The splendor of the name of the King of Dahomey decided her choice and the faculty of geniuses