One looked so like a very pirate that we let him go at once.

The next one spoke with a simpering precision of pronunciation that was irritating and said: "If ze zhentlemans will to me make ze grande honneur to me rattain in hees serveece, I shall show to him every sing zat is magnifique to look upon in ze beautiful Parree.

I speaky ze Angleesh pairfaitemaw." He would have done well to have stopped there, because he had that much by heart and said it right off without making a mistake.

But his self-complacency seduced him into attempting a flight into regions of unexplored English, and the reckless experiment was his ruin.

Within ten seconds he was so tangled up in a maze of mutilated verbs and torn and bleeding forms of speech that no human ingenuity could ever have gotten him out of it with credit.