167.—FRENCH WIT.
Grétry, the French opera composer, was a man of considerable wit and enjoyed a good joke. He was able to take a hand in a bit of fun when occasion offered. At one time, when going on a trip through Switzerland, he met with a German baron who proposed that they should travel together.
As soon as they had begun their journey, Grétry began a conversation with his lordship, saying, "Ah, sir, how enchanted I am with—,"
"Sir," interrupted the baron, "I never talk in a carriage."
"Very well," said Grétry, and subsided into quiet.
The baron had evidently considered that he had a garrulous traveling companion, and that it was best to shut him up in the beginning of the journey.
That night when they halted at an inn and had divested themselves of their dusty traveling robes and were comfortably settled before a roaring blaze, the baron turned to Grétry, saying:—
"Now, my dear sir, how glad I am that."
"Sir," said Grétry sharply, "I never talk in an inn."
The nobleman saw the joke, and the two then entered into friendly conversation.
The next day they were ascending Mount Cenis. Grétry espied a small cross stuck in the ground and inquired of the guides what it meant. He was answered sharply with one word, "Silence!"
"How now," thought our Frenchman, "are these some more German barons?"
But he kept quiet until the end of their climb, when the guides told him that any conversation or noise might, by the vibration of the air, loosen some of the masses of snow and cause an avalanche.