Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 152, April 4, 1917

Excerpt

THE MUD LARKS.

THE French are a great people; the more I see of them the more I admire them, and I have been seeing a lot of them lately.

I seem to have spent the last week eating six-course dinners in cellars with grizzled sky-blue colonels, endeavouring to reply to their charming compliments in a mixture of Gaelic and CORNELIUS NEPOS. I myself had no intention of babbling these jargons; it is the fault of my tongue, which takes charge on these occasions, and seems to be under the impression that, when it is talking to a foreigner, any foreign language will do.

Atkins, I notice, also suffers from a form of the same delusion. When talking to a Frenchman, he employs a mangled cross between West Coast and China pidgin, and by placing a long E at the end of every word imagines he is making himself completely clear to the suffering Gaul. And the suffering Gaul listens to it all with incredible patience and courtesy, and, what is more, somehow or other disentangles a meaning, thereby proving himself the most intelligent creature on earth.

We have always prided ourselves that the teaching of modern languages in our island seminaries is unique; but such is not the case. Here and there in France, apparently, they teach English on the same lines. I discovered this, the other day, when we called on a French battery to have the local tactical situation explained to us. I was pushed forward as the star linguist of our party; the French produced a smiling Captain as theirs. The non-combatants of both sides then sat back and waited for their champions to begin. I felt a trifle nervous myself, and the Frenchman didn't seem too happy. We filled in a few minutes bowing, saluting, kissing and shaking hands, and then let Babel loose, I in my fourth-form French, and he, to my amazement, in equally elementary English. The affair looked hopeless from the start; if either of us would have consented to talk in his own language, the other might have understood him, but neither of us could, before that audience, with our reputations at stake.

Towards lunch-time things grew really desperate; we had got as far as "the pen of my female cousin," but the local tactical situation remained as foggy as ever, our backers were showing signs of impatience, and we were both lathering freely. Then by some happy chance we discovered we had both been in Africa, fell crowing into each other's arms, and the local tactical situation was cleared "one time" in flowing Swahili. Our respective reputations as linguists are now beyond doubt.

We became fast friends, this Captain and I. He bore me off to his cellar, stood me the usual six-course feed (with wines), and after it was over asked how I would like to while away the afternoon. I left it in his hands. "Eh bien, let us play on the Bosch a little," he suggested. It sounded as pleasant a light after-dinner amusement as any, so I bowed and we sallied forth.

He led me to his observation post, spoke down a telephone, and about twenty yards of Hun parapet were not....