Chalet in the Sky

by Albert Robida

  They had the satisfaction of delivering a few pick-axe blows with the miners and detaching a few kilos of coal. As souvenirs, they brought back little pieces containing the bones of prehistoric fish.

  They also brought back the mussels discovered by Koufra, although they had been declared to be of dubious antiquity by the professor. It did not matter; they would look good in a display case with the label:

  Shells of the Tertiary Era

  discovered at a depth of 375 meters in the Lens Mines

  The skip brought the pupils up; only two dozen remained, along with Monsieur Radoux.

  “Count yourselves! 145, 146, 147…one member of 3A is missing.”

  Monsieur Virgile Radoux frowned. A 3A pupil lost and abandoned in the depths of the mine, wandering endlessly through the tunnels!

  “Count yourselves again!”

  “No need, Monsieur,” said Gustave. “It’s Koufra who’s missing; I haven’t seen him for half an hour—we left him in the lower gallery where he was still searching for fossils… I lost sight of him in the darkness; we couldn’t make him out against the background. We need to organize a rescue expedition. Come on—I need four brave volunteers to come with me…”

  “Go! Run! Not so fast, though, in case you break anything. We’ll wait for you here…”

  With a crew of miners and four pupils, Gustave Turbille left in search of his friend, one astray in the bowels of the Earth. That took two long hours. Koufra was so difficult to see. Gustave finally found him and grabbed him by the collar.

  Love of science and the desire to distinguish himself by some discovery had pushed Koufra from gallery to gallery, forgetting the time and his comrades, who were going back up to the daylight, and the dirigible waiting above the mine…

  Fortunately, his research had been fruitful; triumphantly, he brought back a fine well-preserved fish-bone, which he invited his comrades to admire.

  “That’s not a Plesiosaurus!” Turbille exclaimed. “Nor a Brontosaurus, nor an Ichthyosaurus, nor a Stegosaurus—it’s a Harengsaurus:23 a superb specimen, a marvel, a new fossil hitherto unknown.”

  XVIII. The Industrial Geography Course.

  Gustave Turbille launches himself in Big Business.

  The course in geography from nature had not concluded. There were still several excursions to go: the study of canals and rivers; the South; the Mediterranean; and the big attraction, the Côte d’Azur! But summer arrived, and it was very hot. Koufra declared that it was cooler on the banks of the Oubangui.

  To combat the heat, the lecture was held under the pine-trees of a tranquil sheltered cove near Cannes, with the professor in a bathing-gown, the beach-huts gathered in a circle in the shallows and the pupils in swimming trunks, some almost chin-deep in the water—which made it a trifle difficult for them to take notes.

  To refresh themselves they made the grand tour and came back via Brittany and Mont Saint-Michel, almost at wave-height. As they lingered for a while to see the marvel by moonlight, the dirigible, on turning around for the return journey, almost carried away the steeple of the abbey—or became impaled thereon—but a skilful thrust of the tiller permitted that inconvenience to be avoided. Gustave Turbille claimed that he had saved the situation by warning the overly distracted helmsman.

  After Physical Geography there was Industrial and Commercial Geography, another very important course, given by another professor, Monsieur Poujolas, a remarkable technologist and practical man. Along with introductory lessons at the school, the course comprised a four-day trip to England.

  That four-day tour of the British Isles was another big attraction for the pupils, because every evening, after the day’s work, they would be able to find shelter for the night in one of the famous colleges of England—Eton, Oxford and Cambridge—after a huge reception and dinner…practically a banquet, Turbille said.

  When the dirigible Chambourcy appeared, lavishly decked with French and English flags, they embarkation was not long drawn out. Three cheers were uttered.

  “Above all, try to beat Eton at football!” cried the pupils of the other classes, who had made the voyage the previous year, or would undertake it subsequently.

  An hour later, the Chambourcy crossed the channel, scarcely 100 meters above the half-dozen tubes that crossed it, not far from the ancient tunnel. They went up the exceedingly busy Thames, which was sometimes difficult to make out, other than by the swarm of ships, barges and hydroplanes of every shape and size, and the immense city of London appeared, with its towers, its aerial platform, its tubes projecting in every direction like hundreds of arms, and its girdle of industrial chimneys belching swirls of smoke.

  Launching themselves through the smoke so as to reach the region of clouds more rapidly, airships surged forth in their thousands. The song of aerial engines, celestial music, combined with the great orchestral hum of all the machines in the factories below, in a symphony that was more or less formidable, according to the vagaries of the atmosphere—a symphony that filled the ears, sometimes to the point at which it was necessary to plug them. It was beautiful, but a trifle violent.

  To begin with, the Chambourcy described large circles at low speed above the British metropolis: a tour of London at 300 meters; rapid views of edifices important from the point of view of social institutions and organization; the quotation of statistics. The pupils stuffed their notebooks with long columns of figures.

  “Now that you know London in broad terms, to the Docks!” said the professor.

  A plunge into the thickest smoke and a descent to a cluttered landing-platform. The professor hurries the pupils along; the study of the docks is very important, and he recites more statistics, of the greatest interest. The visit is quite long, from one dock to the next and one warehouse to another, amid elevators, swing-bridges and ferry-boats, while the pupils think about Eton, where they are awaited.

  They will arrive late; the reception will suffer in consequence.

  “Messieurs,” says the professor to the form-masters, would you care to inform the pupils of these impressive statistics, while I prepare the practical lesson.”

  “What’s that?” Koufra asked Gustave, who was always well-informed.

  “This: Monsieur Poujolas is negotiating a big rice deal with Anglo-Indian merchants.”

  “What?”

  “The course in Industrial and Commercial Geography includes practical lessons. The professor uses his trip to make commercial representations, to sell articles of French manufacture or to occupy himself with imports. The form-masters are invited to do likewise; you see those little suitcases—they’re samples…there’s only Monsieur Virgile Radoux who isn’t carrying any—he lacks the inclination.”

  The delay at the docks is prolonged. Eton! Eton! The reception at Eton will be a washout! the students are thinking, still inscribing figures in their notebooks.

  Finally, the professor reappears, chatting with gentlemen and arranging papers in his briefcase.

  “I shall summarize a practical lesson every day,” he said to the students grouped around him. “A large consignment of imports has just been arranged: 50,000 tons of top quality rice, originating in Bombay…discussion of numbers, timetable, transportation and customs…”

  Ten minutes of figures, explanations, and more figures…

  “Take note all that—no errors in your figures, above all. Next we’ll discuss the cost price to shops and the probable profits of the exporter and importer…”

  Another ten minutes of explanations and arithmetic. The pupils’ heads are ringing; the scheduled arrival-time at Eton has definitely been missed!

  “Now that you’ve seen how it works, to the dirigible!”

  Alas, it was almost nightfall when they arrived at the old and magnificent Eton College, on the bank of the Thames facing the enormous Windsor Castle. A delegation of Eton pupils in aeroclettes came to meet the Chambourcy and escort it to its landing in a field beside the Thames.

  There was a fine reception i
n the great halls of the ancient college. Eton has also been greatly modernized, by all its adjoined buildings and annexes, but one would not know it from the central kitchen, Out of respect for tradition, there are no culinary engineers, but chefs in the old style, perhaps even bourgeois cooks! An excellent dinner, all the same: speeches in five or six languages; toasts; thanks, next year in Chambourcy, gentlemen of Eton!

  Then Monsieur Poujolas revealed the program for the following day.

  The dirigible will raise anchor at 8 a.m.

  “Very good, Eton, fine reception—the football match is postponed until tomorrow morning,” Gustave whispers mysteriously in Koufra’s ear as they go into the dormitory.

  “But what about the 8 a.m. departure?”

  “The match is scheduled for 7:30 a.m.; the Chambourcy won’t go without us!”

  The matter has just been arranged with the pupils: an international match; honor at stake! Impossible to shirk it!

  “The practical lesson at the docks has excited me,” Gustave says to his friend. “I can definitely feel a taste for big business awakening within me, and I’m going propose something to Papa involving Manchester of Birmingham.”

  At 8 a.m., the professor and the form-masters arrived at the Chambourcy for the departure, but the pupils were not there. A tumult of loud cheering some distance away, on the sports field, allowed the reason for the delay to be deduced. The dirigible would have to be patient. The contest was long, but Chambourcy triumphed. Hurrahs, speeches, refreshments. Eton would seek its revenge the following year.

  Finally, the departure took place at 11 a.m.

  Second day: Birmingham. Study of industries. Metallurgy, iron, smelting, steel, machine tools, blast furnaces, cyclopean machinery, Babylonian factories fuming like Vesuvius multiplied a hundredfold. The pupils were soon all as black as Koufra. That evening, Oxford college. General face-washing; reception as warm as Eton’s.

  Third day: Football. Manchester. Different industries, but almost as much smoke. Insufficient time to visit the coal-mines of Northumberland. Evening, Cambridge. General face-washing, reception as warm as Oxford’s.

  Fourth day: London. Lesson in practical commerce. They have been able to follow the professor doing a few little deals in the foundries of Birmingham and the cotton-mills of Manchester. Now Monsieur Poujolas makes representations of behalf of the silk-factories of Lyon.

  Gustave’s father, glad to see his son launching himself into big business, has instructed him by telephone to negotiate the purchase of half a dozen top-quality pocket-knives in Birmingham. But Gustave is launched, and to the paternal commission he has added a larger item of personal business: 500 dozen razor-blades, on which, if his calculations are accurate, he can make a considerable profit. At any rate, Chambourcy has beaten Eton, and Cambridge too. Oxford won, but not by much. It’s a fine result; everyone aboard congratulates one another when the dirigible reaches France again.

  XIX. The Great Treason of the Pocket Phono-Whisperer.

  Considerable annoyances are overwhelming Gustave, exerting a lamentable influence on his habitual good humor, and also on the fine ardor for work that distinguishes him—not always, admittedly, but often enough—on occasion, when he has reason.

  To begin with, the magnificent deal involving 500 dozen razor-blades has turned out badly. Gustave has felt his confidence in the commercial geography course dwindling away; the professor must have neglected some important point.

  Instead of being warmly congratulated by his father for that revelation of his commercial genius, Gustave obtained nothing but a vigorous reprimand and a considerable diminution of his pocket money. Disaster and humiliation. Utter gloom.

  While awaiting the liquidation, Gustave drew on his stock of razor-blades to offer souvenirs to his comrades—souvenirs received with a cruel indifference. Moustaches were not yet inconveniencing anyone in the third form, who were, in any case, opposed in principle to the fashion for clean-shaven chins.

  And the critical period of the end-of-year exams was imminent. Koufra rejoiced, in that he would soon be able to see his family again, his native river-banks and Villeneuve-sur-Oubangui.

  “My dear Koufra,” said Gustave to his friend, who was interrogating him about his low spirits, “what worries me most isn’t the business with the razor-blades, plagued by the intrigues of competing houses. In the vacation, I shall take away part of my stock, if I’m to spend the holiday with you, in your parents’ home at Villeneuve-sur-Oubangui…”

  “Yes, that’s agreed, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, but only with me—who is, of course, the interested party! Here’s the snag: it’s necessary to take into account the demands of parents. Papa has declared that I have to obtain universal mark of very good in the exams in order for him to consent to my spending the vacation out there. Therefore, I need that very good mark. I’ll struggle hard—I must.”

  Koufra’s only response was to plunge into his books and the reproductions of authors in the phonoclichotheque.

  On returning to the school on Monday, the first day of the terrible exams, Koufra found his friend’s attitude both mysterious and radiant.

  “Victory!” Gustave eventually deigned to say, as he put away his aeroclette. “I have that very good mark—it’s within my grasp!” In response to Koufra’s surprised and interrogative expression, he added: “As good as, at least. This is the rule, my boy: never to give up on myself. I needed the means: absolute urgency; ineluctable necessity! I searched, and—naturally—I’ve found it! Victory! I have them all, my very goods! More than perfect!”

  For the important end-of-year exams, with a view to taking account of the timidity that troubles some students and sometimes prevents them from showing their true merit in their answers, the Administration had long since adopted a simple custom: the exams were to take place, not in the classrooms, but in the rooms that the pupils occupied in groups of two to four, at the most. Examination in one’s own surroundings, by telephonoscope: hence, no reason to feel inhibited or intimidated.

  At 2 p.m., after a good game of cricket, Gustave, now tranquil, was whistling in his room while arranging various small items among the books and papers on his desk. Koufra, seeing him repeatedly fiddling with thin wires leading to the slightly-inflated left-hand pocket of his jacket, asked him a few questions.

  Gustave made him wait for a reply. In the end, he said: “There! I’m ready. The very goods will rain down. You see this little gem?” He took a little box about as big as two fists from his left-hand pocket, and another, almost identical, from his right-hand pocket. “This, my friend, is a little pocket phono-whisperer, manufactured to my specifications—I’ll take out a patent when I have the time. It works very well—I’ve tested it. I install myself tranquilly at my desk, the phono-whisperer in my pocket, connected to my ear by a wire, like this, and when the examiner asks a question, my phono-whisperer murmurs the answer in my ear. Good! I speak entirely at my ease, and I secure, at a stroke, a mark of very good…more than good. Aren’t the answers there, in the box? I have a wide choice of them—an immense choice, for all possible questions, in the little disks carefully prepared by me. And that, my friend, is how one disentangles oneself, with a little ingenuity, from the difficulties of life!”

  The telephonoscope bell rang.

  “The moment has come!” said Gustave. “I shall begin—watch my movements carefully, and when I’ve finished, I’ll pass you the apparatus.”

  The examiner’s silhouette appeared on the telephonoscope screen and rapidly came into focus. He was a gentleman of a certain age, rather plump, of jovial appearance, with a casual smile that reassured Koufra in advance and gave him confidence.

  Gustave continued whistling as he arranged his disks in series, classified according to subject-matter, with clearly visible numbers.

  “Nothing forgotten? All is well!” said Gustave, manipulating his answer-disks with the skillful dexterity of a conjuror.

  And the exam began.


  At first, it looked as if things would turn out as well as expected; the phono-whisperer’ first answers, without being absolutely brilliant, were not bad. The questions, in any case, related to simple matters and had been anticipated. Gustave smiled triumphantly. Suddenly, however, everything changed.

  The examiner’s physiognomy became less relaxed; he leaned forward, his fingers tapping his papers impatiently. Koufra saw that his spectacles were throwing off sparks, and very softly, without making any noise, he escaped into the corridor.

  Of noise, there was now enough in the room! It was becoming an authentic duel, a heated battle between the examiner and the examinee: questions posed and repeated in a dry and severe voice; answers form at first, then suddenly hesitant and woolly…excited exclamations and interjections succeeding sudden silences…renewals of bursts of speech…

  Decidedly, it was going wrong. In the corridor, Koufra waited anxiously to hear the telephonoscope explode.

  And the inflexible voice of the examiner continued, utterly dominating, crushing the patient…

  “I’m giving you a zero, Monsieur, and that’s not all! Another zero! Zero! Zero! Zero! Zero!”

  Nothing more: abrupt silence. Koufra listened, astounded.

  Gustave knocked him over as he came out, as red as a tomato, with his hair in a mess. “Go on,” he said, “it’s you—your turn. Go on! I don’t recommend that you use my phono-whisperer; it’s come unstuck. The invention isn’t perfected—I’ll have to go back to work. Good luck, old chap!”

  Gustave went away, furious. That wasn’t playing the game! The examiner must have planned in advance to trouble him with insidious and difficult questions, deliberately prepared. Everything had gone wrong—and how!

  As he ran into the grounds to catch his breath and calm down, poor Gustave tripped over the legs of Monsieur Radoux, who was daydreaming under the tall trees.