I quite like this (extremely accurate) opening: “Into the face of the young man who sat on the terrace of the Hotel Magnifique at Cannes there had crept a look

I quite like this (extremely accurate) opening: “Into the face of the young man who sat on the terrace of the Hotel Magnifique at Cannes there had crept a look of furtive shame, the shifty hangdog look which announces that an Englishman is about to speak French.” – The Luck of the Bodkins