SCÈNE III

Page 11. — 11-12. quelque chose de drôle, something funny. Note the use of de. This is the regular partitive use; similarly so after rien.

13. tinsses. Pontbichet is now expanding and becoming grandiloquent, as this imperfect subjunctive shows. The imperfect subjunctive is practically always avoided in spoken French. The grammar rule for the sequence of tenses is invariably broken and the present or perfect subjunctive used.