THE TWO MUSKETEERS

by Bruce Holland Rogers     

One evening I met Donat Bobet in a bar on the Rue Jolicoeur to enjoy a bottle of wine with bread and cheese. I thought I would amuse him with the solecisms of a young American woman who lived in my building. I reminded him of the English word, jolly, which someone might mistakenly imagine was related to the French, jolie. "For the entire first month after her arrival in Montreal, whenever someone asked her how she was, she said that she was very pretty!"
     My companion stared into his wine. The corners of his mouth turned up in only the faintest hint of a smile.
     "You see," I said, "she meant to say that she was very happy."
     "Do you doubt it?" asked Donat Bobet.
     "She seems happy enough. That's not the point."
     He looked up from his wine. "Do you doubt that she is very pretty?"
     "She's a lovely girl."
     "Well, then." He asked if I didn't want some more of the cheese. I declined. This was only an appetizer for me, but I thought that for Donat, wine and cheese were to be the whole of his dinner.   NEXT