| How Do You Say Ha-Ha in French? By Ogden Nash |
| There are several people who I can claim I am glad
I am not, without being accused of pride and effrontery, And one of them is the bartender of a French res- taurant in an English-speaking country. The conversation of the customers isn�t calculated to keep a bartender young, Even when they converse in their mother tongue; How much more dispiriting it must be when after the second Martini They request a third because the first two are, not finished, but finis. They select a Maryland, or cigarette, And instead of Gotta light? it is Avez-vous une allumette? When they cry Gar�on after the school of Stratford atte Bowe or New Rochelle or Nineveh, It is moot whether they want the waiter or Mrs. Minniver. Somehow, in a bistro, or French eatery, Everybody suddenly discovers they can talk like Sasha Guitry, But they really can�t, And if I were the bartender I should poke them in the �il with the plume de ma tante. |