and ask him how you should set about keeping them awake. This is beyond
his advice.

* * * * *

The General commanding a French military school had once decided upon
having a lecture on Hygiene given to the pupils on Monday afternoons.
The day was badly chosen. A French Sunday always means for a French boy
a little dissipation in the shape of a good dinner at home or with
friends, and on Monday afternoons we generally felt ready for a little
doze, if the lecture was in the least prosy.

The lecturer, tired of addressing sleeping audiences, lodged a
complaint with the General, and asked that his lecture should
henceforth take place on another day of the week.

This could not be arranged, but the General soon decided upon a plan to
set matters to rights.

"I will place a _basof_[11] in the room," he said; "he will take down
the names of all those who go to sleep, and I shall have them kept in
on the following Sunday."

[11] Abbreviation of "bas-officier" (non-commissioned officer).

When the lecturer made his next appearance, followed by the _basof_,
we thought it would be prudent to listen, and the lesson passed off
without accident.

The following Monday, however, the poor lecturer had not proceeded very
far, when he discovered that we were all asleep--and that so was the
_basof_.

Of course the General inflicted a severe punishment upon us, and also
upon the offending Cerberus.

_Moral._--I believe that, if a lecturer or a master had gone to
complain to an English head-master that all his pupils went to sleep
whilst he lectured, the head-master would have answered him:

"My dear sir, if your lecture sends your audience to sleep, it is your
fault, not mine, and I don't see how I can help you."

And the sooner the man sent in his resignation, the better for the
comfort of all concerned.

If you are a Frenchman, never allow your boys to call you _Mossoo_,
_Myshoo_, _Mounzeer_, or any other British adaptation of _Monsieur_. If
you do, you may just as well allow them to pat you on the back and call
you "Old chappie." They should call you "Sir," otherwise you will lose
your footing and fail to be the colleague of the English masters. You
will only be the _Mossoo_ of the place, something, in the world, like
the _Mademoiselle_ (from Paris), or the _Fraulein_ (from Hanover), of
the Establishment for Young Ladies round the corner.

* *