he said, after sewing on the shade, and František really thought he had something unusually ornamental and strutted proudly to school. Endless laughter greeted him, the boys hopped about him, assuring him that his shade was, compared to other shades, like a side post among thin planks, and they called him the “jamb boy.” František broke the nose of one of the boys with his “jamb,” for which he got the lowest grade in deportment, and had all he could do later to be accepted into the gymnasium.
His parents wished to make every effort to have their son become somebody so that he would not be compelled to earn his bread by as hard means as they did. The teachers and neighbors tried to talk them out of the notion, saying he had no ability, and besides that, he was a rascal. Indeed, among the neighbors he had that reputation. He was particularly unfortunate with them, although in reality he did no more than their own children, possibly even less. Whenever he played ball on the street it was sure to fly into someone’s open window and when with his companions he played at shuttlecock in the driveway he was sure to break the lamp under the cross, although he took pains to be careful.
Nevertheless František, who was now called Horáček, entered the gymnasium. It cannot be said that he applied himself to school studies with excessive perseverance, for they had begun to disgust him when he was in the German school. His general progress was
