Once he had to translate: "His conduct was good." He first put sa conduite. After this effort in the right direction, his conscience was satisfied, and he added, était bon. Why? Because an adjective is longer in the feminine than in the masculine, and with him and his like the former gender stands very little chance.
I remember two very strange boys. They were not typical, I am happy to say.
When the first of them was on, his ears would flap and go on flapping like the gills of a fish, till he had either answered the question or given up trying, when they would lie at rest flat against his head. If I said to him sharply: "Well, my boy, speak up; I can't hear," his ears would start flapping more vigorously than ever. Sometimes he would turn his eyes right over, to see if he could not find the answer written somewhere inside his head. This boy could set the whole of his scalp in motion, bring his hair right down to his eyes, and send it back again without the least difficulty. These performances were simply wonderful. The boys used to watch him with an interest that never flagged, and more than once I was near losing my countenance.
One day this poor lad fell in the playground, and cut his head open. We were all anxious to ascertain what it was he had inside his head that he always wanted to get at. The doctor found nothing remarkable in it.
The other boy was a fearful stammerer. The manner in which he managed to get help for his speech is worth relating. Whenever he had to read a piece of French aloud, he would utter the letter "F" before each French word, and they would positively come out easily. The letter "F" being the most difficult letter for stammerers to pronounce, I always imagined that he thought he would be all right with any sound, if he could only say "F" first.
He was successful.
A boy with whom you find it somewhat difficult to get on is the diffident one who always believes that the question you ask him is a "catch." He is constantly on guard, and surrounds the easiest question with inextricable difficulties. It is his misfortune to know that rules have exceptions, and he never suspects that it would enter your head to ask him for the illustration of a general rule.
He knows, for instance, that nouns ending in al form their plural by changing al into aux; but if you ask him for the plural of général, he will hesitate a long while, and eventually answer you, générals.
"Do you mean to say, my boy, that you do not know how to form the plural of nouns in al?"