“In Paris they simply stared when I spoke to them in French; I never did succeed in making those idiots understand their own language.”

What does it mean?

A joke at the writer's own expense: the French people did not understand him because his French was bad, but he pretends the problem was theirs.

Key vocabulary

stared

looked at someone for a long time, often in surprise

• “The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter: 'tis the difference between the lightning-bug and the lightning.”– Mark Twain
• “I know grammar by ear only, not by note, not by the rules.”– Mark Twain
• “The secret of getting ahead is getting started.”– Often attributed to Mark Twain
• “Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear - not absence of fear.”– Mark Twain