Among those professors who seemed, during my school-days, so severe, and indeed almost cruel to me, the most terrible without any exception were the “Bull of Apis” and the “Big Black Ape” (I had nicknames for all of them). I hope should they read this they will understand that I am writing from the child's view-point. Should I meet them to-day I would, in all probability, humbly¹ tender them my hand and ask their pardon for having been such an unmanageable pupil.  
Oh! the Big Ape especially, how I hated him! When from the height of his desk these words fell upon my ear: “You will do a hundred lines; I mean you, you little sap-head!” I could have flown at his face like an enraged² cat. He was the first to arouse in me those sudden and violent outbursts of rage that characterized me as a man, outbreaks which could scarcely have been foreseen in a child of my sweet and patient disposition³.
 
I would be doing myself a great injustice⁴ in saying that I was altogether a bad scholar, I was, rather, an unequal and erratic⁵ one; one day at the head of my class, the next day at the foot; but on the whole I maintained a fair average, and at the end of the year I received the prize for translation—I won no others however. It surprised me that every one in the class did not receive the prize that I had won without great effort, for translation was

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