I sat at a different breakfast table, but there was no want of entertainment. At my side was a master of both anglais and français , and opposite him an American young lady who thinks French is simply just impossible to learn.

“Mademoiselle,” says he, “must find it difficult to get what she likes to eat.”

“I certainly do,” says she. “I don’t understand a word of what’s on the menu card.”

“Perhaps I can help mademoiselle,” says he. “Would she like perhaps a grapefruit?”

She would and she’d also like oatmeal and eggs and coffee. So he steered her straight through the meal with almost painful politeness, but in the intervals when he wasn’t using his hands as an aid to gallant discourse, he was manicuring himself with a fork.