“Little girl, can you find some one to drive away—” she began hopefully.
“_Comment_? _Comprends pas_,” was the response.
“Oh, are you French? _Êtes vous française_?”
“Then why not talk English? I want to know if—”
“_Permettez-moi expliquer_. You see, I’m rather under a cloud,” said Matilda. “I’m staying with my aunt, and I was told I must behave particularly well to-day, as lots of people were coming for a garden party, and I was told to imitate Claude, that’s my young cousin, who never does anything wrong except by accident, and then is always apologetic about it. It seems they thought I ate too much raspberry trifle at lunch, and they said Claude never eats too much raspberry trifle. Well, Claude always goes to sleep for half an hour after lunch, because he’s told to, and I waited till he was asleep, and tied his hands and started forcible feeding with a whole bucketful of raspberry trifle that they were keeping for the garden-party. Lots of it went on to his sailor-suit and some of it on to the bed, but a good deal went down Claude’s throat, and they can’t say again that he has never been known to eat too much raspberry trifle. That is why I am not allowed to go to the party, and as an additional punishment I must speak French all the afternoon. I’ve had to tell you all this in English, as there were words like ‘forcible feeding’ that I didn’t know the French for; of course I could have invented them, but if I had said _nourriture obligatoire_ you wouldn’t have had the least idea what I was talking about. _Mais maintenant_, _nous parlons français_.”
“Oh, very well, _trés bien_,” said Mrs. Stossen reluctantly; in moments of flurry such French as she knew was not under very good control. “_Là_, _à l’autre côté de la porte_, _est un cochon_—”
“_Un cochon_? _Ah_, _le petit charmant_!” exclaimed Matilda with enthusiasm.
“_Mais non_, _pas du tout petit_, _et pas du tout charmant_; _un bête féroce_—”
“_Une bête_,” corrected Matilda; “a pig is masculine as long as you call it a pig, but if you lose your temper with it and call it a ferocious beast it becomes one of us at once. French is a dreadfully unsexing language.”
“For goodness’ sake let us talk English then,” said Mrs. Stossen. “Is there any way out of this garden except through the paddock where the pig is?”