I walk about for years with dictionaries in my pocket.

Weird-looking ladies and gentlemen gesticulate and rave at me for months.

I hide myself in lonely places, repeating idioms to myself out loud, in the hope that by this means they will come readily to me if ever I want them, which I never do.

And, after all this, I don't seem to know very much.

This irritating ass, who has never left his native suburb, suddenly makes up his mind to travel on the Continent.