The little Secretary was about to retreat; but as he looked once more toward the haunted Louse a dim light appeared in the crack of a closed window, and presently old Jean Poquelin came, dragging his chair, and sat down close against the shining cranny.  He spoke in a low, tender tone in the French tongue, making some inquiry.  An answer came from within.  Was it the voice of a human?  So unnatural was it—­so hollow, so discordant, so unearthly—­that the stealthy listener shuddered again from head to foot, and when something stirred in some bushes near by—­though it may have been nothing more than a rat—­and came scuttling through the grass, the little Secretary actually turned and fled.  As he left the enclosure he moved with bolder leisure through the bushes; yet now and then he spoke aloud:  “Oh, oh!  I see, I understand!” and shut his eyes in his hands.

How strange that henceforth little White was the champion of Jean Poquelin!  In season and out of season—­wherever a word was uttered against him—­the Secretary, with a quiet, aggressive force that instantly arrested gossip, demanded upon what authority the statement or conjecture was made; but as he did not condescend to explain his own remarkable attitude, it was not long before the disrelish and suspicion which had followed Jean Poquelin so many years fell also upon him.

It was only the next evening but one after his adventure that he made himself a source of sullen amazement to one hundred and fifty boys, by ordering them to desist from their wanton hallooing.  Old Jean Poquelin, standing and shaking his cane, rolling out his long-drawn maledictions, paused and stared, then gave the Secretary a courteous bow and started on.  The boys, save one, from pure astonishment, ceased but a ruffianly little Irish lad, more daring than any had yet been, threw a big hurtling clod, that struck old Poquelin between the shoulders and burst like a shell.  The enraged old man wheeled with uplifted staff to give chase to the scampering vagabond; and—­he may have tripped, or he may not, but he fell full length.  Little White hastened to help him up, but he waved him off with a fierce imprecation and staggering to his feet resumed his way homeward.  His lips were reddened with blood.

Little White was on his way to the meeting of the Board.  He would have given all he dared spend to have staid away, for he felt both too fierce and too tremulous to brook the criticisms that were likely to be made.

“I can’t help it, gentlemen; I can’t help you to make a case against the old man, and I’m not going to.”

“We did not expect this disappointment, Mr. White.”

“I can’t help that, sir.  No, sir; you had better not appoint any more investigations.  Somebody’ll investigate himself into trouble.  No, sir; it isn’t a threat, it is only my advice, but I warn you that whoever takes the task in hand will rue it to his dying day—­which may be hastened, too.”