Page:The Novels and Tales of Henry James, Volume 2 (New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1907).djvu/44

 occurred to Newman to plead for a guarantee of his skill in imparting instruction; he supposed of course M. Nioche knew the language he so beautifully pronounced, and his brokenness of spring was quite the perfection of what the American, for vague reasons, had always associated with all elderly foreigners of the lesson-giving class. Newman had never reflected upon philological processes. His chief impression with regard to any mastery of those mysterious correlatives of his familiar English vocables which were current in this extraordinary city of Paris was that it would be simply a matter of calling sharply into play latent but dormant muscles and sinews. "How did you learn so much English?" he asked of the old man.

"Oh, I could do things when I was young—before my miseries. I was wide awake then. My father was a great commerçant; he placed me for a year in a counting-house in England. Some of it stuck to me, but much I've forgotten!"

"How much French can I learn in about a month?"

"What does he say?" asked mademoiselle; and then when her father had explained: "He'll speak like an angel!"

But the native integrity which had been vainly exerted to secure M. Nioche's commercial prosperity flickered up again. "Dame, monsieur! he answered. "All I can teach you!" And then, recovering himself at a sign from his daughter: "I 'll wait upon you at your hotel."

"Oh yes, I should like to converse with elegance," Newman went on, giving his friends the benefit of any 14