After this first success, he thought he would air his French. "_Garçon!_" he calls; "_j'ai faim._" He pronounces this quite perfectly, so perfectly that the waiter, understanding that he is married, informs him that he can have apartments ready for Madame. "He is obstinate and will have another shot: "_Je suis fameux, garçon!_" The waiter bows respectfully. This won't do, dear fellow; try again. "_Je suis femme!_" he yells. This staggers the waiter. It is time to inquire of him if he speaks English. "Can you speak English?" "Oh yes, sir." Our traveler is all right again, but he thinks that those confounded French people have a queer manner of pronouncing their own language. * * * * * With the exception of our nasal sounds, which I know are stumbling-blocks to Englishmen--who will always insist on calling our great music composer and pianist Saint-Saëns, "Sang Songs"--I never could understand that the difficulty of our pronunciation was insuperable. Our vowels are bold, well-marked, always sounded the same, and, except _u_, like the English vowels, or so nearly like them that they can not prevent an Englishman from understanding French and speaking it. The greatest mistake he makes is in not bearing in mind that the accent should always be laid on the last syllable, or on the last but one if the word ends in _e_ mute. How much easier this is to remember than the place of the English accented syllable, which varies constantly! In _admirable_, you have it on the first; in _admire_, on the second; in _admiration_, on the third. On the contrary, no difficulty about the pronunciation of the three French words, _admirable_, _admirer_, and _admiration_; the tonic accent falls on the last sound syllable in every case. * * * * * The less educated a man is the more stress he lays on the accented syllables; and you find the lower classes of a country lay such emphasis on these syllables that they almost pronounce nothing else. Being unable to make myself understood when pronouncing whole English words, I have often tried to use only the accented syllables when speaking to the lower class people of England; in every attempt I have been successful. I obtained a basket of strawberries in Covent Garden Market by asking for a "_bask of strawbs_." A lower class Yankee will understand few Frenchmen who speak to him of _America_; but he will understand them if they speak to him of _Merk_. * * * * * The greatest defect in an Englishman's pronunciation of French is generally in the wrong connection of words between which there is no pause. The final consonant of a word, followed by another beginning with a vowel or _h_ mute, should be pronounced as if it belonged to the latter word. An Englishman sounds _ses amis_ as if it was _seize amis_. He should say: "se samis." "Mon ami est à Paris" = "Mo nami è ta Paris."