I took a moment to collect my thoughts, and likewise to frame in French the sentence by which I proposed to open business.

I made it as short as possible:-- "Messieurs, prenez vos livres de lecture." "Anglais ou Francais, monsieur ?" demanded a thickset, moon-faced young Flamand in a blouse.

The answer was fortunately easy:-- "Anglais." I determined to give myself as little trouble as possible in this lesson; it would not do yet to trust my unpractised tongue with the delivery of explanations; my accent and idiom would be too open to the criticisms of the young gentlemen before me, relative to whom I felt already it would be necessary at once to take up an advantageous position, and I proceeded to employ means accordingly.
"Commencez!" cried I, when they had all produced their books.

The moon-faced youth (by name Jules Vanderkelkov, as I afterwards learnt) took the first sentence.

The "livre de lecture" was the "Vicar of Wakefield," much used in foreign schools because it is supposed to contain prime samples of conversational English; it might, however, have been a Runic scroll for any resemblance the words, as enunciated by Jules, bore to the language in ordinary use amongst the natives of Great Britain.