We were speaking in French, of course. I had no earthly reason for suspecting Rosalie of knowing any other language, as, for all her title, she had nothing of the grande dame about her, and might have been a farmer's daughter or run a decent little restaurant, so far as distinction went. But when I said, "You're not in the motor business for your health," I translated the American slang literally. Now, as a matter of fact, most slang translates literally from one language to another, and it has often surprised me when I've been in the States to hear some local mug that had never got farther from his alley than the first full gutter, spouting what was considered the very latest hot talk, and what I've recognised straight off as good old moth-eaten, fly-bitten Montmartre or La Villette. If some person with a lot of time on his hands wanted to take the trouble he could dig up an old English or old German or old French gag for the bulk of American slang. I can only think of a few this minute. For instance, "to have a good front," avoir du front; "chippy," chiple; the word French crooks have for prison, couloir—corridor and, in American, "the cooler"; or to get right down to recent American slang, not over five years old, "gink." The apache French for that, and old as the hills, too, is ging, and comes from the word ginguet, which means a soft, easy mark. So, mind you, what I said to Rosalie about not running a taxi for her health might have been said in French slang in exactly the same way. Maybe my way of putting it was the American one, for she stared at me for a second, then answered in per-
