"There you are," he replied, "what did I tell you? Suppose an unfortunate and harmless Frenchman arriving for the first time in London, were to rely on the dictionary and address the conductor of the first 'bus he entered as a cad, by George, he would probably find himself the next moment rolling in the gutter with the conductor on the top of him, and his only excuse would be that he trusted to the dictionary."
Violette looked at him with a mingled expression of amazement and doubt as to whether he was serious or not, and then glanced at her father who was snoring in the corner of the carriage, with a night-cap tied over his ears, while Madame Beaupaire was taking stock of Charley by the aid of a gold-mounted pair of lorgnettes attached to a long tortoise-shell handle.
"Evidently you zink ze English language ees vastly superior to ours, monsieur," said madame, who had spent a summer in England, and picked up enough English to understand the drift of what he had been saying.
"Well, to be candid I do. Just think of its range. Our new dictionary contains a million and a half of words, whereas your language has only——"
"Oh, come on, Charley, don't pull her leg," said Ridgeway.
"Sir!" said madame, sitting bolt upright, and surveying him through her hand magnifiers, "you insult me."
"A thousand pardons, madame. What I said was only a colloquial expression for pulling the long bow."
"Pulling ze vot?" she enquired somewhat suspiciously.
"Pulling the long bow—another colloquial expression much employed by Englishmen. It merely implied a caution to my young friend not to exaggerate so much. I assure you, my dear madame, the remark I uttered had no reference whatever to your legs."