"B'n'm'ss'ulvla'n'fsse'n'sse'pas!"
I said: "Thank you so much! I had half suspected it myself." But I didn't really know what he meant.
So I have come to make it a rule never to use French unless driven to it. Thus, for example, I had a tremendous linguistic struggle in a French tailors shop.
There was a sign in the window to the effect that "completes" might be had "for a hundred." It seemed a chance not to be missed. Moreover, the same sign said that English and German were spoken.
So I went in. True to my usual principle of ignoring the French language, I said to the head man:
"You speak English?"
He shrugged his shoulders, spread out his hands and looked at the clock on the wall.
"Presently," he said.
"Oh," I said, "you'll speak it presently. That's splendid. But why not speak it right away?"
The tailor again looked at the clock with a despairing shrug.