"
The surprise of a 'barbarian' (for so we termed everyone who was not
acquainted with Saturday's special customs) who had called at eleven
o'clock to speak to my father, and had found us at table, was an event
which used to cause Francoise as much merriment as, perhaps, anything that
had ever happened in her life. And if she found it amusing that the
nonplussed visitor should not have known, beforehand, that we had our
luncheon an hour earlier on Saturday, it was still more irresistibly funny
that my father himself (fully as she sympathised, from the bottom of her
heart, with the rigid chauvinism which prompted him) should never have
dreamed that the barbarian could fail to be aware of so simple a matter,
and so had replied, with no further enlightenment of the other's surprise
at seeing us already in the dining-room: "You see, it's Saturday." On
reaching this point in the story, Francoise would pause to wipe the tears
of merriment from her eyes, and then, to add to her own enjoyment, would
prolong the dialogue, inventing a further reply for the visitor to whom
the word 'Saturday' had conveyed nothing.
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