"Qu'est-ce que c'est une hypothese—"
"Vous etes trap jeune pour comprendre ces choses."
"Oh alors vous ne savez pas vous-meme!" I cried triumphantly, "Sans cela vous me diriez."
"Elisabeth, vous ecrirez, des que nous rentrons, leverbe Prier le bon Dieu de m'Aider a ne plus Etre si Impertinente."
She was an ingenious young woman, and the verbs I had to write as punishments were of the most elaborate and complicated nature— Demander pardon pour Avoir Siffle comme un Gamin quelconque, Vouloir ne plus Oublier de Nettoyer mes Ongles, Essayer de ne pas tant Aimer les Poudings, are but a few examples of her achievements in this particular branch of discipline.
That very day at the table d'hote the abstracted lady sat next to me. A ragout of some sort was handed round, and after I had taken some she asked me, before helping herself, what it was.
"Snails," I replied promptly, wholly unchastened by the prayers I had just been writing out in every tense.
"Snails! Ekelig." And she waved the waiter loftily away, and looked on with much superciliousness at the rest of us enjoying ourselves.
"What! You do not eat this excellent ragout?" asked her other neighbour, a hot man, as he finished clearing his plate and had time to observe the emptiness of hers. "You do not like calves' tongues and mushrooms? Sonderbar."
I still can see the poor lady's face as she turned on me more like a tigress than the impassive person she had been a moment before. "Sie unverschamter Backfisch!" she hissed. "My favourite dish—I have you to thank for spoiling my repast—my day!" And in a frenzy of rage she gripped my arm as though she would have shaken me then and there in the face of the multitude, while I sat appalled at the consequences of indulging a playful fancy at the wrong time.