The Unwiseman was up bright and early the next morning. Mollie and
Whistlebinkie had barely got their eyes open when he came knocking at
the door.
"Better get up, Mollie," he called in. "It's fine weather and I'm going
to call on the Umpire. The chances are that on a beautiful day like this
he'll have a parade and I wouldn't miss it for a farm."
"What Umpire are you talking about?" Mollie replied, opening the door on
a crack.
"Why Napoleon Bonaparte," said the Unwiseman. "Didn't you ever hear of
him? He's the man that came up here from Corsica and picked the crown up
on the street where the king had dropped it by mistake, and put it on
his own head and made people think he was the whole roil family. He was
smart enough for an American and I want to tell him so."
"Why he's dead," said Mollie.
"What?" cried the Unwiseman. "Umpire Napoleon dead? Why--when did that
happen? I didn't see anything about it in the newspapers."
"He died a long time ago," answered Mollie. "Before I was born, I
guess."
"Well I never!" ejaculated the Unwiseman, his face clouding over. "That
book I read on the History of France didn't say anything about his being
dead--that is, not as far as I got in it. Last time I heard of him he
was starting out for Russia to give the Czar a licking. I supposed he
thought it was a good time to do it after the Japs had started the ball
a-rolling. Are you sure about that?"
"Pretty sure," said Mollie. "I don't know very much about French
history, but I'm almost certain he's dead."
"I'm going down stairs to ask at the office," said the Unwiseman.
"They'll probably know all about it."
So the little old gentleman pattered down the hall to the elevator and
went to the office to inquire as to the fate of the Emperor Napoleon. In
five minutes he was back again.
"Say, Mollie," he whispered through the key-hole. "I wish you'd ask
your father about the Umpire. I can't seem to find out anything about
him."
"Don't they know at the office?" asked Mollie.
"Oh I guess they know all right," said the Unwiseman, "but there's a
hitch somewhere in my getting the information. Far as I can find out
these people over here don't understand their own language. I asked 'em
in French, like this: 'Mounseer le Umpire, est il mort?' And they told
me he was _no_ more. Now whether _no_ more means that he is not mort, or
_is_ mort, depends on what language the man who told me was speaking. If
he was speaking French he's not dead. If he was speaking English he _is_
dead, and there you are. It's awfully mixed up."
"I-guess-seez-ded-orright," whistled Whistlebinkie. "He was dead last
time I heard of him, and I guess when they're dead once there dead for
good."
"Well you never can tell," said the Unwiseman. "He was a very great man,
the Umpire Napoleon was, and they might have only thought he was dead
while he was playing foxy to see what the newspapers would say about
him."
So Mollie asked her father and to the intense regret of everybody it
turned out that the great Emperor had been dead for a long time.
"It's a very great disappointment to me," sighed the Unwiseman, when
Mollie conveyed the sad news to him. "The minute I knew we were coming
to France I began to read up about the country, and Napoleon Bonaparte
was one of the things I came all the way over to see. Are the Boys de
Bologna dead too?"
"I never heard of them," said Mollie.
"I feel particularly upset about the Umpire," continued the Unwiseman,
"because I sat up almost all last night getting up some polite
conversation to be held with him this morning. I found just the thing
for it in my book."
"Howdit-go?" whistled Whistlebinkie.
"Like this," said the Unwiseman. "I was going to begin with:
"'Shall you buy a horse?'
"And the Umpire was to say:
"'I should like to buy a horse from you.'
"And then we were to continue with:
"'I have no horse but I will sell you my dog.'
'You are wrong; dogs are such faithful creatures.'
'But my wife prefers cats----'"
"Pooh!" cried Whistlebinkie. "You haven't got any wife."
"Well, what of it?" retorted the Unwiseman. "The Umpire wouldn't know
that, and besides she _would_ prefer cats if I had one. You should not
interrupt conversation when other people are talking, Whistlebinkie,
especially when it's polite conversation."
"Orright-I-pol-gize," whistled Whistlebinkie. "Go on with the rest of
it."
"I was then going to say:" continued the Unwiseman,
"'Will you go out this afternoon?'
'I should like to go out this afternoon.'
'Should you remain here if your mother were here?'
'Yes I should remain here even if my aunt were here.'
'Had you remained here I should not have gone out.'
'I shall have finished when you come.'
'As soon as you have received your money come to see me.'
'I do not know yet whether we shall leave tomorrow.'
'I should have been afraid had you not been with me.'
'So long.'
'To the river.'"
"To the river?" asked Whistlebinkie. "What does that mean?"
"It is French for, 'I hope we shall meet again.' Au river is the polite
way of saying, 'good-bye for a little while.' And to think that after
having sat up until five o'clock this morning learning all that by heart
I should find that the man I was going to say it to has been dead
for--how many years, Mollie?"
"Oh nearly a hundred years," said the little girl.
"No wonder it wasn't in the papers before I left home," said the
Unwiseman. "Oh well, never mind----."
"Perhaps you can swing that talk around so as to fit some French
Robert," suggested Whistlebinkie.
"The Police are not Roberts over here," said the Unwiseman. "In France
they are Johns--John Darms is what they call the pleece in this country,
and I never should think of addressing a conversation designed for an
Umpire to the plebean ear of a mere John."
"Well I think it was pretty poor conversation," said Whistlebinkie. "And
I guess it's lucky for you the Umpire is dead. All that stuff didn't
mean anything."
"It doesn't seem to mean much in English," said the Unwiseman, "but it
must mean something in French, because if it didn't the man who wrote
French in Five Lessons wouldn't have considered it important enough to
print. Just because you don't like a thing, or don't happen to
understand it, isn't any reason for believing that the Umpire would not
find it extremely interesting. I shan't waste it on a John anyhow."
An hour or two later when Mollie had breakfasted the Unwiseman presented
himself again.
"I'm very much afraid I'm not going to like this place any better than I
did London," he said. "The English people, even if they do drop their
aitches all over everywhere, understand their own language, which is
more than these Frenchmen do. I have tried my French on half a dozen of
them and there wasn't one of 'em that looked as if he knew what I was
talking about."
"What did you say to them?" asked Mollie.
[Illustration: "HAVE YOU SEEN THE ORMOLU CLOCK OF YOUR SISTER'S MUSIC
TEACHER?"]
"Well I went up to a cabman and remarked, just as the book put it, 'how
is the sister of your mother's uncle,' and he acted as if I'd hit him
with a brick," said the Unwiseman. "Then I stopped a bright looking boy
out on the rue and said to him, 'have you seen the ormolu clock of your
sister's music teacher,' to which he should have replied, 'no I have not
seen the ormolu clock of my sister's music teacher, but the candle-stick
of the wife of the butcher of my cousin's niece is on the mantel-piece,'
but all he did was to stick out his tongue at me and laugh."
"You ought to have spoken to one of the John Darms," laughed
Whistlebinkie.
"I did," said the Unwiseman. "I stopped one outside the door and asked
him, 'is your grandfather still alive?' The book says the answer to that
is 'yes, and my grandmother also,' whereupon I should ask, 'how many
grandchildren has your grandfather?' But I didn't get beyond the first
question. Instead of telling me that his grandfather was living, and his
grandmother also, he said something about Ally Voozon, a person of whom
I never heard and who is not mentioned in the book at all. I wish I
was back somewhere where they speak a language somebody can understand."
"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 class 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 butter 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 Canal, 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."
"Wass-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 ship
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.
"Because," said Whistlebinkie, "I was afraid if he didn't he'd begin to
talk like me and that would be perf'ly awful."