She was almost perfect, even, in her French, and Tavia was not partial to French. “Goodness knows, I’ll never get to Paris, and what use is there in learning French in these United States, just so’s to be able to read the menus at the fashionable hotels?” complained Tavia.
“But, it is considered quite the thing,” suggested Ned Ebony.
“Oh, sure! everybody who’s made a little money in oil, or coal, or pork, or wheat, has to have a French teacher. Say, Doro! do you remember Mrs. Painter, in Dalton? The lady whose husband had an awful lot of money left him?”
“Oh, I remember!” laughed Dorothy. “Poor woman! She wanted to be so refined and educated all of a sudden.”
“That’s the lady,” said Tavia.
“What about her?” demanded Cologne.
“She tried to learn French. At any rate, she learned a few phrases, and she used to work them into conversation in such a funny way,” Tavia explained, giggling over the thought of the poor lady.
“She went into the butcher shop one day and asked Sam Smike, the butcher, if he had any ‘bon-vivant’.”
“‘Bon-vivant’?” gasped Cologne. “What—what——”
“That’s what Sam wanted to know,” giggled Tavia. “He says to her: ‘Boned what, ma’am?’