THE FUSE Placido Penitente left the class with his heart overflowing with bitterness and sullen gloom in his looks.

He was worthy of his name when not driven from his usual course, but once irritated he was a veritable torrent, a wild beast that could only be stopped by the death of himself or his foe.

So many affronts, so many pinpricks, day after day, had made his heart quiver, lodging in it to sleep the sleep of lethargic vipers, and they now were awaking to shake and hiss with fury.

The hisses resounded in his ears with the jesting epithets of the professor, the phrases in the slang of the markets, and he seemed to hear blows and laughter.

A thousand schemes for revenge rushed into his brain, crowding one another, only to fade immediately like phantoms in a dream.