Her Book French

"It is a wise oíd saw which advises ene 'not to go to France unless you know tiie lingo,' and indeed it is desirable to know it pretty well if you wish to avoid hnmiliating Iittle situations, " eaid a Philadelphia young woruan in speaking of her experience. "I am an American girl, and abont a year ago was rather proud uf ray boarding school French, bnt I ara wiser now. We were a party of four - my parents, myself and a young lady, some years my senior, who had been my schoolmate, bnt was recently widowed. Our tonr began in Germauy, and as we were all densely ignorant of Qermany, we were oftentimes compelled to depend greatly on gesture language, esjpecially in out of the way places, where there were no Bnglish speaking hotel orrailroadclerks and waiters. This gave us some decidedly comical experiences, though it was a revelation as to the capabilities of dumb show and pantomime, but on toucbing French soil I feit relieved and confident. Alas for human pride ! At the flrst practical test, though I could read the language easily euough, I found I could ficarcely catch a word. "The sounds seemed to fly likewinged rrows, and it might have been Chinese, so far as my nnderstanding it was concerned. Some of the more considérate, out of pure instinctive politeness, would speak very slowly, and then I conld get along well enough, and in the conrse of a few days I began to recover some of my old confidence. My first real hnmiliatiou came at a restaurant in the Palais Royal, when I wanted a spoon (cuiller) and asked for a staircase (escalier). I got over that, however, but was caught shortly afterward with the word 'frappe' on the wine list. which stnck me altogether until a young Englishman told me it meant'iced. ' By this time the conceit was rapidly oozing ont of me, and two more Iittle incidents brought on the catastrophe. Our party determined one day to go to the theater, and I undertook to ask the clerk of the hotel about it, and in what I thought the purest Parisian French told him we wanted a box, which I translated 'boite. ' Unable quite to restrain his laughter, he said, 'Mademoiselle means a loge. ' " "I then discovered that 'boite' means a dry goods box, or any other kind almost rather than one at a theater. But worse emained. I wanted to explain to eome Prench people that my friend, the widow, was in mourning for her husband, and I tried to say, 'Elle est en denil parceque son mari est mort,' she is in mouming because her husband is dead. Unfortunately my conjugation of verbal participles was weak, and I snbStituted the word 'morue' for 'mort,' which made me say, 'She is in mourning because her busband is a codfish. ' "