Mollie and the Unwiseman Abroad Part 18

"Have you had your breakfast?" asked Mollie.

A deep frown came upon the face of the Unwiseman.

"No--" he answered shortly. "I--er--I went to get some but they tried to cheat me," he added. "There was a sign in a window announcing French Tabble d'hotes. I thought it was some new kind of a breakfast food like cracked wheat, or oat-meal flakes, so I stopped in and asked for a small box of it, and they tried to make me believe it was a meal of four or five courses, with soup and fish and a lot of other things thrown in, that had to be eaten on the premises. I wished for once that I knew some French conversation that wasn't polite to tell 'em what I thought of 'em. I can imagine a lot of queer things, but when everybody tells me that oats are soup and fish and olives and ice-cream and several other things to boot, even in French, why I just don't believe it, that's all.

What's more I can prove that oats are oats over here because I saw a cab-horse eating some. I may not know beans but I know oats, and I told 'em so. Then the garkon--I know why some people call these French waiters gason now, they talk so much--the garkon said I could order _a la carte_, and I told him I guessed I could if I wanted to, but until I was reduced to a point where I had to eat out of a wagon I wouldn't ask his permission."

"Good-for-you!" whistled Whistlebinkie, clapping the Unwiseman on the back.

"When a man wants five cents worth of oats it's a regular swindle to try to ram forty cents worth of dinner down his throat, especially at breakfast time, and I for one just won't have it," said the Unwiseman.

"By the way, I wouldn't eat any fish over here if I were you, Mollie,"

he went on.

"Why not?" asked the little girl. "Isn't it fresh?"

"It isn't that," said the Unwiseman. "It's because over here it's poison."

"No!" cried Mollie.

"Yep," said the Unwiseman. "They admit it themselves. Just look here."

The old gentleman opened his book on French in Five Lessons, and turned to the back pages where English words found their French equivalents.

"See that?" he observed, pointing to the words. "Fish--poison.

P-O-I-double S-O-N. 'Taint spelled right, but that's what it says."

"It certainly does," said Mollie, very much surprised.

"Smity good thing you had that book or you might have been poisoned,"

said Whistlebinkie.

"I don't believe your father knows about that, does he, Mollie?" asked the old man anxiously.

"I'm afraid not," said Mollie. "Leastways, he hasn't said anything to me about it, and I'm pretty sure if he'd known it he would have told me not to eat any."

"Well you tell him with my compliments," said the Unwiseman. "I like your father and I'd hate to have anything happen to him that I could prevent. I'm going up the rue now to the Loover to see the pictures."

"Up the what?" asked Whistlebinkie.

"Up the rue," said the Unwiseman. "That's what these foolish people over here call a street. I'm going up the street. There's a guide down stairs who says he'll take me all over Paris in one day for three dollars, and we're going to start in ten minutes, after I've had a spoonful of my bottled chicken broth and a ginger-snap. Humph! Tabble d'hotes--when I've got a bag full of first cla.s.s food from New York! I tell you, Mollie, this travelling around in furry countries makes a man depreciate American things more than ever."

"I guess you mean _ap_preciate," suggested Mollie.

"May be I do," returned the Unwiseman. "I mean I like 'em better.

American oats are better than tabble d'hotes. American beef is better than French buff. American b.u.t.ter is better than foreign burr, and while their oofs are pretty good, when I eat eggs I want eggs, and not something else with a hard-boiled accent on it that twists my tongue out of shape. And when people speak a language I like 'em to have one they can understand when it's spoken to them like good old Yankamerican."

"Hoorray for-Ramerrica!" cried Whistlebinkie.

"Ditto hic, as Julius Caesar used to say," roared the Unwiseman.

And the Unwiseman took what was left of his bottleful of their native land out of his pocket and the three little travellers cheered it until the room fairly echoed with the noise. That night when they had gathered together again, the Unwiseman looked very tired.

"Well, Mollie," he said, "I've seen it all. That guide down stairs showed me everything in the place and I'm going to retire to my carpet-bag again until you're ready to start for Kayzoozalum----"

"Swizz-izzer-land," whistled Whistlebinkie.

"Switzerland," said Mollie.

"Well wherever it is we're going Alp hunting," said the Unwiseman. "I'm too tired to say a word like that to-night. My tongue is all out of shape anyhow trying to talk French and I'm not going to speak it any more. It's not the sort of language I admire--just full o' nonsense.

When people call pudding 'poo-dang' and a bird a 'wazzoh' I'm through with it. I've seen 8374 miles of pictures; some more busted statuary; one cathedral--I thought a cathedral was some kind of an animal with a hairy head and a hump on its back, but it's nothing but a big overgrown church--; Napoleon's tomb--he is dead after all and France is a Republic, as if we didn't have a big enough Republic home without coming over here to see another--; one River Seine, which ain't much bigger than the Erie Ca.n.a.l, and not a trout or a snapping turtle in it from beginning to end; the Boys de Bologna, which is only a Park, with no boys or sausages anywhere about it; the Champs Eliza; an obelisk; and about sixteen palaces without a King or an Umpire in the whole lot; and I've paid three dollars for it, and I'm satisfied. I'd be better satisfied if I'd paid a dollar and a half, but you can't travel for nothing, and I regard the extra dollar and fifty cents as well spent since I've learned what to do next time."

"Wa.s.s-that?" whistled Whistlebinkie.

"Stay home," said the Unwiseman. "Home's good enough for me and when I get there I'm going to stay there. Good night."

And with that the Unwiseman jumped into his carpet-bag and for a week nothing more was heard of him.

"I hope he isn't sick," said Whistlebinkie, at the end of that period.

"I think we ought to go and find out, don't you, Mollie."

"I certainly do," said Mollie. "I know I should be just stufficated to death if I'd spent a week in a carpet-bag."

So they tip-toed up to the side of the carpet-bag and listened. At first there was no sound to be heard, and then all of a sudden their fears were set completely at rest by the cracked voice of their strange old friend singing the following patriotic ballad of his own composition:

"Next time I start out for to travel abroad I'll go where pure English is spoken.

I'll put on my shoes and go sailing toward The beautiful land of Hoboken.

"No more on that movey old channel I'll sail, The sickening waves to be tossed on, But do all my travelling later by rail And visit that frigid old Boston.

"Nay never again will I step on a s.h.i.+p And go as a part of the cargo, But when I would travel I'll make my next trip Out west to the town of Chicago.

"My sweet carpet-bag, you will never again Be called on to cross the Atlantic.

We'll just buy a ticket and take the first train To marvellous old Williamantic.

"No French in the future will I ever speak With strange and impossible, answers.

I'd rather go in for that curious Greek The natives all speak in Arkansas.

"To London and Paris let other folks go I'm utterly cured of the mania.

Hereafter it's me for the glad Ohi-o, Or down in dear sweet Pennsylvania.

"If any one asks me to cross o'er the sea I'll answer them promptly, 'No thanky-- There's beauty enough all around here for me In this glorious land of the Yankee.'"

Mollie laughed as the Unwiseman's voice died away.

"I guess he's all right, Whistlebinkie," she said. "Anybody who can sing like that can't be very sick."

"No I guess not," said Whistlebinkie. "He seems to have got his tongue out of tangle again. I was awfully worried about that."

"Why, dear?" asked Mollie.