Madame had an eager desire to understand and appreciate English jokes, and of all things a joke is the most difficult to translate. A fellow-lodger once incautiously repeated to me a joke which he had read in a paper. It ran thus: "First British Soldier (in a French Restaurant): 'Waiter, this 'am's 'igh. 'Igh 'am. _Compris?_' Second British Soldier: 'You leave it to me, Bill. I know the lingo. _Garcon, Je suis._'" I laughed. Madame looked at me and at W., my fellow-lodger, and demanded a translation of the joke. I referred the matter to W. His French was, if possible, worse than mine, but it was he who had started the subject. "Ham," I said to him, "is _jambon_. Go ahead." W. went ahead, but "high" in the sense he wanted did not seem to be in the dictionary. I had a try when W. gave up and began with an explanation of the cockney's difficulty with the letter "h." Madame smiled uncomprehendingly. W., who had studied the dictionary while I talked, made a fresh start at "_je suis_." "_Je suis_--I am. _Jambon_--ham, _c'est a dire ''am' a Londres_.'" We worked away all through that meal. At supper, Madame, still full of curiosity, set us at it again. We pursued that joke for several days until we were all exhausted, and Madame, politely, said she saw the point, though she did not and never will. I do not believe that joke can be translated into French. Months afterwards I had as fellow-lodger a man who spoke French well and fluently. I urged him to try if he could make Madame understand. He failed. Madame was most hospitable. She was neither worried nor cross when we asked friends to dine with us. Indeed she was pleased. But she liked due notice so that she could devote proper attention to _la cuisine_. M., who was at that time with a cavalry brigade, used to come and spend a night or two with me sometimes. He was a special favourite with Madame and she used to try to load him with food when he was leaving. One very wet day in late autumn, Madame produced a large brown-paper bag and filled it with pears. She presented it to M. with a pretty speech of which he did not understand a word. M. was seriously embarrassed. He liked Madame and did not want to hurt her feelings; but he had before him a railway journey of some hours and then five miles on horseback. It is impossible to carry a brown-paper bag full of pears on a horse through a downpour of rain. The bag gets sopped at once and the pears fall through it. M. pushed the bag back to Madame. "_Merci, merci_," he said. "_Mais non, pas possible._" Madame explained that the pears were deliciously ripe, which was true. M. said, "_A cheval, Madame, je voyage a cheval_." Madame pushed the bag into his hands. He turned to me. "For goodness' sake explain to her--politely, of course--that I can't take that bag of pears. I'd like to. They'd be a godsend to the mess. But I can't."