The progress that academy made in a real grip of the French language was miraculous; but the knowledge it gained in French grammar and syntax was deplorable. A certain mid-term examination--the paper being set by a neighbouring vicar--produced awful results. The phrase, "How do you do, dear?" which ought, by all the rules of Stratford-atte-Bowe, to be translated by _Comment vous portez-vous, ma chère?_ was rendered by most of the senior scholars _Eh, ma vieille, ca boulotte?_ One innocent and anachronistic damsel, writing on the execution of Charles I., declared that he _cracha dans le panier_ in 1649, thereby mystifying the good vicar, who was unaware that "to spit into the basket" is to be guillotined. This wealth of vocabulary was discounted by abject poverty in other branches of the language. No one could give a list of the words in "_al_" that took "_s_" in the plural, no one knew anything at all about the defective verb _échoir_, and the orthography of the school would have disgraced a kindergarten. The head mistress suspected a lack of method in the teaching of M. Pujol, and one day paid his class a surprise visit.
The sight that met her eyes petrified her. The class, including the governess, bubbled and gurgled and shrieked with laughter. M. Pujol, his bright eyes agleam with merriment and his arms moving in frantic gestures, danced about the platform. He was telling them a story--and when Aristide told a story, he told it with the eloquence of his entire frame. He bent himself double and threw out his hands.
"_Il était saoûl comme un porc_," he shouted.
And then came the hush of death. The rest of the artless tale about the man as drunk as a pig was never told. The head mistress, indignant majesty, strode up the room.
"M. Pujol, you have a strange way of giving French lessons."
"I believe, madame," said he, with a polite bow, "in interesting my pupils in their studies."
"Pupils have to be taught, not interested," said the head mistress. "Will you kindly put the class through some irregular verbs."
So for the remainder of the lesson Aristide, under the freezing eyes of the head mistress, put his sorrowful class through irregular verbs, of which his own knowledge was singularly inexact, and at the end received his dismissal. In vain he argued. Outraged Minerva was implacable. Go he must.