Parisian abbe, in order to excuse me, observed that my stomach was weak.
A discussion arose.

"Gentlemen," I said, in my vexation, and rather angrily, "you are all
wrong, for my stomach is excellent, and I have not had any supper."

Thereupon an elderly man told me, with a voice full of sweetness, that I
ought not to say that the gentlemen were wrong, though I might say that
they were not right, thus imitating Cicero, who, instead of declaring to
the Romans that Catilina and the other conspirators were dead, only said
that they had lived.

"Is it not the same thing?"

"I beg your pardon, sir, one way of speaking is polite, the other is
not." And after treating me to a long dissection on politeness, he
concluded by saying, with a smile, "I suppose you are an Italian?"

"Yes, I am, but would you oblige me by telling me how you have found it
out?"

"Oh! I guessed it from the attention with which you have listened to my
long prattle."

Everybody laughed, and, I, much pleased with his eccentricity, began to
coax him. He was the tutor of a young boy of twelve or thirteen years who
was seated near him. I made him give me during the journey lessons in
French politeness, and when we parted he took me apart in a friendly
manner, saying that he wished to make me a small present.