s
included. But of these pathetic outcasts I have nothing to say. I do not
approve of them, I do not encourage them; I am prudishly delicate and
sensitive, and I do not allow them to be used in my presence.

But, as I have said, I decided to catch one of the others and break it
into harness. One is enough. Once familiar with its assortment of tails,
you are immune; after that, no regular verb can conceal its specialty
from you and make you think it is working the past or the future or the
conditional or the unconditional when it is engaged in some other line
of business--its tail will give it away. I found out all these things by
myself, without a teacher.

I selected the verb AMARE, TO LOVE. Not for any personal reason, for
I am indifferent about verbs; I care no more for one verb than for
another, and have little or no respect for any of them; but in foreign
languages you always begin with that one. Why, I don't know. It is
merely habit, I suppose; the first teacher chose it, Adam was satisfied,
and there hasn't been a successor since with originality enough to start
a fresh one. For they ARE a pretty limited lot, you will admit that?
Originality is not in their line; they can't think up anything new,
anything to freshen up the old moss-grown dullness of the language
lesson and put life and "go" into it, and charm and grace and
picturesqueness.

I knew I must look after those details myself; therefore I thought them
out and wrote them down, and set for the FACCHINO and explained them to
him, and said he must arrange a proper plant, and get together a
good stock company among the CONTADINI, and design the costumes, and
distribute the parts; and drill the troupe, and be ready in three days
to begin on this Verb in a shipshape and workman-like manner. I told him
to put each grand division of it under a foreman, and each subdivision
under a subordinate of the rank of sergeant or corporal or something
like that, and to have a different uniform for each squad, so that I
could tell a Pluperfect from a Compound Future without looking at the
book; the whole battery to be under his own special and particular
command, with the rank of Brigadier, and I to pay the freight.

I then inquired into the character and possibilities of the selected
verb, and was much disturbed to find that it was over my size, it being
chambered for fifty-seven rounds--fifty-seven ways of saying I LOVE
without reloading; and yet none of them likely t