French Paradous!

I was waiting at a bus stop on Drumcondra Road on Sunday, finishing an early chapter of a Parker novel, when a man walked up to me and announced that he was French.

"Fair play to ye," I said.

"Sank you," he replied.

And then he apologised to me for speaking a lot of English. Which meant he didn't speak very much at all.
So I sanked him back.

Then he pointed to a sign outside a B&B next to the stop which had No Vacancies written on it and shrugged his shoulders.
Only then did I notice his luggage. A narrative formed pretty quickly.

"It is yes, no? Or no, yes?" he asked.

And I thought about it an replied.

"It's no. Non vacances, oui. Oui. Non."

He looked at me oddly, then sanked me encore.
And I sanked him with knobs on, almost as much as I sanked the bus driver whose doors were opening for me just then.
(Moral of story: improve both conversational French ... and English)

I was reading this Parker novel.