Somehow I seemed
likely to possess that accomplishment. I cannot charge myself with
having ever claimed to possess it; but I am afraid that when any one
said to me `I suppose you speak French perfectly?' I allowed the tone
of my denial to carry with it a hint of mock-modesty. `Oh no,' I would
say, `my French is wretched,' rather as though I meant that a member
of the French Academy would detect lapses from pure classicism in it;
or `No, no, mine is French pour rire,' to imply that I was practically
bilingual. Thus, during the years when I lived in London, I very often
received letters from hostesses asking me to dine on the night when
Mme. Chose or M. Tel was coming. And always I excused myself--not on
the plea that I should be useless. This method of mine would have been
well enough, from any but the moral standpoint, had not Nemesis,
taking her stand on that point, sometimes ordained that a Gaul should
be sprung on me. It was not well with me then. It was downfall and
disaster.
Strange, how one will trifle with even the most imminent doom. On
being presented to the Gaul, I always hastened to say that I spoke his
or her language only `un tout petit peu'--knowing well that this poor
spark of slang would kindle within the breast of M. Tel or the bosom
of Mme. Chose hopes that must so quickly be quenched in the puddle of
my incompetence.
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