"ONE OF THOSE IMPOSSIBLE AMERICANS"


"N'avez-vous pas--" she was bravely demanding of the clerk when she
saw that the bulky American who was standing there helplessly
dangling two flaming red silk stockings which a copiously coiffured
young woman assured him were _bien chic_ was edging nearer her.
She was never so conscious of the truly American quality of her
French as when a countryman was at hand. The French themselves had
an air of "How marvellously you speak!" but fellow Americans
listened superciliously in an "I can do better than that myself"
manner which quite untied the Gallic twist in one's tongue. And so,
feeling her French was being compared, not with mere French itself,
but with an arrogant new American brand thereof, she moved a little
around the corner of the counter and began again in lower voice:
"_Mais, n'avez_--"

"Say, Young Lady," a voice which adequately represented the figure
broke in, "_you_, aren't French, are you?"

She looked up with what was designed for a haughty stare. But what
is a haughty stare to do in the face of a broad grin? And because it
was such a long time since a grin like that had been grinned at her
it happened that the stare gave way to a dimple, and the dimple to a
laughing: "Is it so bad as that?"

"Oh, not your French," he assured her. "You talk it just like the
rest of them. In fact, I should say, if anything--a little more so.
But do you know,"--confidentially--"I can just spot an American girl