FOR AND AGAINST

What would Mr. Octave Duplanquet, deputy of Loir-et-Loire, say if his young son Toto, a day student at Janson, came home one fine day with a black eye, a swollen nose, and also large tears in his jacket and pants? …

What would Mr. Deputy Duplanquet say if the aforementioned Toto, instead of trying to explain or apologize, cried out, while wiping his face still red with blood:

— Ah! Dad! What did I put on my friends? Imagine that there were some nasty guys in the class who maintained that Thys was better at packaging than Bottecchia. There was the great Duranpon in particular. I threw myself on him and tore off his tie and his false collar. So, that coward Machinet punched me in the nose. I fought back. I knocked out at least two of Duranpon's teeth... Colinard threw his inkwell at Turlurou's face... It was a real battle. Our "teacher" shouted and threw his arms in the air, but we didn't stop... Ah! old man, Dad, we really had a laugh!...

...I know what Mr. Deputy Duplanquet would say to young Toto. He would tell him that he was a rascal. He would pull his ears, deprive him of cinema for a few weeks, or even the Olympic Games, and advise him not to try it again... And Mr. Deputy Duplanquet would act like a good father...

...Only, what can young Toto Duplanquet think, if he is wise, quiet and gentle and if it is his dad who comes home with a tomato nose and black eyes?... What can good Toto think, what can he think of his father's character and the character of our parliamentary assemblies if it is his dad who fights like a rag-picker... (Why, by the way, do they say that rag-pickers are so pugnacious?...) If it is his dad who, at the Lycée Bourbon, tears his pants, breaks the desks and scratches his old friends?...

What can young Toto think if his dear dad, dripping with blood, his clothes in shreds, said to him, without laughing: Ah! my little Toto! If you knew how we worked this afternoon in the Chamber!... We discussed the amnesty...
— About the amnesty?
— Yes... It is a measure of appeasement.

Maurice Prax.