is that my
gibberish did me no harm on the score of wit: on the contrary, it
procured me fine acquaintances.

Several ladies of the best society begged me to teach them Italian,
saying that it would afford them the opportunity of teaching me French;
in such an exchange I always won more than they did.

Madame Preodot, who was one of my pupils, received me one morning; she
was still in bed, and told me that she did not feel disposed to have a
lesson, because she had taken medicine the night previous. Foolishly
translating an Italian idiom, I asked her, with an air of deep interest,
whether she had well 'decharge'?

"Sir, what a question! You are unbearable."

I repeated my question; she broke out angrily again.

"Never utter that dreadful word."

"You are wrong in getting angry; it is the proper word."

"A very dirty word, sir, but enough about it. Will you have some
breakfast?"

"No, I thank you. I have taken a 'cafe' and two 'Savoyards'."

"Dear me! What a ferocious breakfast! Pray, explain yourself."

"I say that I have drunk a cafe and eaten two Savoyards soaked in it, and
that is what I do every morning."

"You are stupid, my good friend. A cafe is the establishment in which
coffee is sold, and you ought to say that you have drunk 'use tasse de
cafe'"

"Good indeed! Do you drink the cup? In Italy we say a 'caffs', and we are
not foolish enough to suppose that it means the coffee-house."

"He will have the best of it! And the two 'Savoyards', how did you
swallow them?"

"Soaked in my coffee, for they were not larger than these on your table."

"And you call these 'Savoyards'? Say biscuits."

"In Italy, we call them 'Savoyards' because they were first invented in
Savoy; and it is not my fault if you imagined that I had swallowed two of
the porters to be found at the corner of the streets--big fellows whom
you call in Paris Savoyards, although very often they have never been in
Savoy."

Her husband came in at that moment, and she lost no time in relating the
whole of our conversation. He laughed heartily, but he said I was right.
Her niece arrived a few minutes after; she was a young girl about
fourteen years of age, reserved, modest, and very intelligent. I had
given her five or six lessons in Italian, and as she was very fond of
that language and studied diligently she was beginning to speak.

Wishing to pay me her compliments in Italian, she said to me,

"'Signore, sono in cantata di vi Vade