ou have found it
out?"

"Oh! I guessed it from the attention with which you have listened to my
long prattle."

Everybody laughed, and, I, much pleased with his eccentricity, began to
coax him. He was the tutor of a young boy of twelve or thirteen years who
was seated near him. I made him give me during the journey lessons in
French politeness, and when we parted he took me apart in a friendly
manner, saying that he wished to make me a small present.

"What is it?"

"You must abandon, and, if I may say so, forget, the particle 'non',
which you use frequently at random. 'Non' is not a French word; instead
of that unpleasant monosyllable, say, 'Pardon'. 'Non' is equal to giving
the lie: never say it, or prepare yourself to give and to receive
sword-stabs every moment."

"I thank you, monsieur, your present is very precious, and I promise you
never to say non again."

During the first fortnight of my stay in Paris, it seemed to me that I
had become the most faulty man alive, for I never ceased begging pardon.
I even thought, one evening at the theatre, that I should have a quarrel
for having begged somebody's pardon in the wrong place. A young fop,
coming to the pit, trod on my foot, and I hastened to say,

"Your pardon, sir."

"Sir, pardon me yourself."

"No, yourself."

"Yourself!"

"Well, sir, let us pardon and embrace one another!" The embrace put a
stop to the discussion.

One day during the journey, having fallen asleep from fatigue in the
inconvenient gondola, someone pushed my arm.

"Ah, sir! look at that mansion!"

"I see it; what of it?"

"Ah! I pray you, do you not find it...."

"I find nothing particular; and you?"

"Nothing wonderful, if it were not situated at a distance of forty
leagues from Paris. But here! Ah! would my 'badauds' of Parisians believe
that such a beautiful mansion can be found forty leagues distant from the
metropolis? How ignorant a man is when he has never travelled!"

"You are quite right."

That man was a Parisian and a 'badaud' to the backbone, like a Gaul in
the days of Caesar.

But if the Parisians are lounging about from morning till night, enjoying
everything around them, a foreigner like myself ought to have been a
greater 'badaud' than they! The difference between us was that, being
accustomed to see things such as they are, I was astonished at seeing
them often covered with a mask which changed their nature, while their
surprise often arose from their