A
like mystery enshrouds his early manhood, and the malice of his foes,
who are legion, denounces him for a Jesuit of Innsbruck. But since he
has lived within the eye of the world his villainies have been revealed
as clearly as his attainments, and history provides him no other rival
in the corruption of youth than the infamous Thwackum.
It is not every scholar's ambition to teach the elements, and Rosselot
adopted his modest calling as a cloak of crime. No sooner was he
installed in a mansion than he became the mansion's master, and
henceforth he ruled his employer's domain with the tyrannical severity
of a Grand Inquisitor. His soul wrapped in the triple brass of
arrogance, he even dared to lay his hands upon food before his betters
were served; and presently, emboldened by success, he would order the
dinners, reproach the cook with a too lavish use of condiments, and
descend with insolent expostulation into the kitchen. In a week he had
opened the cupboards upon a dozen skeletons, and made them rattle their
rickety bones up and down the draughty staircases, until the inmates
shivered with horror and the terrified neighbours fled the haunted
castle as a lazar-house. Once in possession of a family secret, he felt
himself secure, and henceforth he was free to browbeat his employer and
to flog his pupil to the satisfaction of his waspish nature. Moreover,
he was endowed with all the insight and effrontery of a trained
journalist. So sedulous was he in his search after the truth, that
neither man nor woman could deny him confidence.
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