* * * * *

When I said that boys do not look at the notes given at the end of
their text-books, it was nothing short of a libel, as two cases
following will prove.

* * * * *

_Diable! c'est qu'il est capricieux, le bonhomme!_

A boy looked at a note on this phrase, and found: "_capricieux_, akin
to Latin _capra_ (a goat)." Next day, he brought his translation, which
ran thus:

"The good man is devilishly like a goat."

* * * * *

The next two "howlers" were indulged in by my boys, as we were reading
Jules Sandeau's _Mademoiselle de la Seigliere_.

The Baroness de Vaubert says to the Marquis de la Seigliere:
"_Calmez-vous_."

A boy having translated this by "Calm yourself," I observed to him:

"Couldn't you give me something more colloquial?"

Boy, after a moment's reflection:

"Keep your hair on, old man."

* * * * *

_Je laisse Renaud dans les jardins d'Armida_, "I leave this fox in the
gardens of Armida," and, between brackets, the following explanatory
statement:

("Jerusalem delivered Tasso in the hands of an enchantress named
Armida.")[7]

[7] I reproduce the note which had "helped" the boy:

["_Renaud dans les jardins d'Armida_," _the enchanted gardens
of Armida_ ("_Jerusalem Delivered_," _Tasso_), _figuratively,
in the hands of an enchantress._]

* * * * *

_Chaque age a ses plaisirs_ was translated by a nice little boy, "Every
one grows old for his preserves."

(Evidently written after a surfeit of jam.)

* * * * *

The vagaries of my young friends are thrown into the shade by some
achievements of professional translators which I have come across in
America. A French master may occasionally enjoy the drolleries that a
magnificent disdain for dictionary trammels and a violent yearning
towards the playground will betray his pupil into; but I imagine that a
publisher, who pays in hard cash for the faithful translation of a
French book, can scarcely be pleased to find that the work has been
interlarded with mirth-provoking blunders thrown in gratis.

I extract the two following examples of "French as she is traduced"
from the translation of one of my books that the American pirates did
me the honor to publish:

_Les ex