The Montgomery advertiser., 1909-01-17


 tng Jack" she declared herself un. nerved for work, and remained idle t -Srs two or three days--a. remarkable \ circumstance in the life of such an inn passioned wofker
 s The story is tragic and distressing ! But enthralling. The troubles of Jack { eecome the troubles of the reaJer His
 unhappy destiny weighs oh tl,s reader
 as If 1t were personal to him. Few < books achieve this.
 Like his other novel. "Le Petit Chose" the story reminds the English i reader of David Copperfield; but the resemblance is only incidehtal. Style $ action and consummation are typically
 Daudet-the work Of a poet who writes in prose.
 When His Royal Highness of Da- honey became a pupil of Moronyal's s Gymnase in Paris. the fortune of that 4 shabby and melancholy institution of
 learning seemed made Eyasiste
 Moronval had come to france from < Guadeloupe. full of ambition and greed He hal dreamed of repeating in Paris the successes that had made him a
 great man in the little black seaport Hut Paris paid no attention to the great Evariste Moronval of the dark complexion, and he became one of the
 
 proud, one of those professors of any i thing who ramble uselessly through
 the streets.
 One day fortune threw into his way
 the information that ship captains coming from foreign countries often
 brought with them the sons of rich
 natives to be educated in Paris
 Moronyal seized the idea. The Gym nase Moronval was the result E During the first year he gathered as
 pupils two little savages from the ' Guinea coast and then the nephew of
 the Iman of Zanzibar. These little l folk were well supplied with money quite ignorant of its value and entire i ly helpless, since their white guardians were away on long voyages most of
 the time.
 As soon as the Gymnase Moronval was thus launched, a volunteer facul-
 ty flocked around its director Dr. Hirsch, a doctor without a diploma, be- came professor of sciences, and mathe- E matics. The great poet Amaury d'Ar- genton. a poet without an editor or an audience, became professor of litera- ture. The great LAbassindre, a singer without an engagement. installed him. self in the post of professor Of singing. Like Moronval, these unrecognfzed geniuses were furious against a socie- ty that would not honor them or even :.
 Everywhere in the world there are { groups of such imitation talents
 They find each other as surely as iron filings find magnet They draw to- gether, prop each other up by their complaints. their cravings, their idle and sterile vanity. Filled with mutual { contempt of each other they still can mot exist apart. for they need to hear
 themselves boast, they must read their . poems, their wild essays, they must : sing their iumbled songs.
 st That these professors could moi
 teach anything was not a point of i'm. { iportance. The little savages neither
 knew nor cared. They were pleased
 with their academic uniforms of {
 wonderful military appearance, be
 dizened with gold lace to the elbows. sE Unfortunately, remittances had.
 queer habit of ceasing suddenly aftel
 q few quarters. The. tenure of .th'
 great in savage-land evidently was in \ secure. Thus the Gymnase Moronya < had it's periods of ebb. when the pro. fessors had to live in the old hap.
 hazard way of their coffee room anG
 boulevard existences.
 The ebb was turned to golden floot
 by the arrival of the son of Dahomey'.
 King. Little Madou became a mine o
 wealth for the Gymnase. They ex hfbited and paraded him. boasted In al
 the cafes of their royal pupil, anC Q Blamed what they should do when h.
 returned to Dahomey.
 .They would all go out with him
 that was certain. Labassindre saw [ himself singing to the assembled ! wealth of Dahomey and pillaging thu 1reasury as those humbugsss the popu
 lar faYorites in French opera wer, ] lpiliagfng Paris. pr. Hirsch~ saw him self the physician of the Kingdom Z carrying out his fantastic ideas il . medicine which the jealous police 0 France would not let him try. Moron val saw himself a ruler of men at last { and Ionged already to punish tlfem. la Poor little Madou, ignorant of all these vaulting ambitions, impervious to all education. longed only for his lpalms and deserts. and for his won- | kderful aunt Kerika, strong and beauti- z ifuI and terrible, who was general in yommand of the Amazons and whom Madou loved more than anything in
 gthe world.
 Madou had been in the Gymnase for some months when all the dreams of the faculty were puffed out in an in- . fatant. The great King of Dahomey was defeated and captured by the
 Ashantees. The royal army was dis
 persed. The Amazons were massacred { rkerika herself was hiding in the will 5 derness
 More immediately bitter was the ces- : sation of the rivulet of gold that had irrigated the parched. unrecognized geniuses. Their sufferings moved them ; to righ hteous wrath against the cause ? of 1t all With noble independence they renounced their unworthy ale ? glance to royalty and cast the little King into outer darkness, not with 7 out generous kicks and cuffs. Admired and respected pupil no more he became the household drudge. They z stripped him of his gallant tunic and ! dressed him in the tattered and ill., { fitting raiment of a Iackey. Thereaf- f ter the last desce ndant of the magni-
 fires, swept the rooms and carried
 home the provisions.
 However. he brought one last piece { of fortune to the Gymnase MorOnval, E even after his fall A beautiful young C person came to Paris and was installed in an elegant little house in the Boulc. < vard Haussmann. She looked around for a school to which she might in- z trust her darling son Jack The splen- dor of the name of the King of Da- 2 honey decided her choice and the fa- ! culty of geniuses was transported with r delight at d renewed source of in- come, not to mention the natural sat z isfacttou at having a white pupil at
 last.
 They referred to their new patron
 grandiloquently as Madam the Count 2 ess. and Ida de Barancy did not deny
 her right to the title. Indeed her
 pretty head was so full of aTistocracy
 and rank that she may not have been