once met in England a French master who had not written a French
grammar.

I was one day introduced to a Frenchman who keeps a successful school
in the Midland counties. He makes it a rule to sternly refuse to let
his boys go home in the neighboring town before one o'clock on Sundays.
When parents ask him as a special favor to allow their sons to come to
their house on Saturday night or early on Sunday morning, he answers:
"I am sorry I cannot comply with your request. It has come to my
knowledge that there are parents who do not insist on their children
going to church, and I cannot allow any of my pupils to go home before
they have attended divine service."

John Bull made to go to church by a Frenchman! The idea was novel, and
I thought extremely funny.

* * * * *

To teach "the art of speaking and writing the French language
correctly" is a noble but thankless career in England.

In France, the Government grants a pension to, and even confers the
Legion of Honor upon, an English master[13] after he has taught his
language in a _lycee_ for a certain number of years.

[13] Among the nominations in the Legion of Honor, published on
the 14th of July, 1884, I noticed the name of the English master
(an Englishman) in the _lycee_ of Bordeaux.

The Frenchman who has taught French in England all his lifetime is
allowed, when he is done for, to apply at the French Benevolent Society
for a free passage to France, where he may go and die quietly out of
sight.

* * * * *

If you look at the advertisements published daily in the "educational"
columns of the papers, you may see that compatriots of mine give
private lessons in French at a shilling an hour, and teach the whole
language in 24 or 26 lessons. Why not 25? I always thought there must
be something cabalistic about the number 26. These gentlemen have to
wear black coats and chimney-pots. How can they do it if their wives do
not take in mangling?

Mystery.

* * * * *

In a southern suburb of London, I remember seeing a little house
covered, like a booth at a fair, with boards and announcements that
spoke to the passer-by of all the wonders to be found within.

On the front-door there was a plate with the inscription:

"Mons. D., of the University of France."

Now Englishmen who address Frenchmen as "Mons."[14] s