“Ingalls ought to have invited me,” said Mr. Kidder, affecting to feel slighted.
“He will doubtless remember you another time,” said Alphonso; “probably the count does not like a large company.”
“I suppose he is just like other men,” said Kidder, by way of drawing out his fellow-clerk. “If you hadn’t known him to be a count, you wouldn’t have seen anything particular in him.”
“I beg to differ with you,” said Alphonso, with an air of superior information. “Some persons might have thought so; but I claim to be a judge of men, and I at once saw that he was a high-toned aristocrat.”
“What did you judge from, now?” asked Kidder, amused.
“I cannot explain what,—it was that the French call je ne sais quoi,” answered Mr. Jones, who had been studying up some French phrases that very morning.
“Genesee squaw!” echoed Kidder, purposely misunderstanding him. “What on earth has a French count to do with a Genesee squaw?”
“I pity your ignorance, Mr. Kidder,” said Alphonso, mildly. “The words I used were French, and mean, ‘I don’t know what.’”
“You don’t know what they mean? Then why do you use them?”
“You misunderstand me again. Je ne sais quoi means I—do—not—know—what. Do you see it now?”