ENGAGED TO INTERPRET FOR THE FRENCH
"Where did you get that baseball?" asked Bonny Brooks, referring to one
that Alaric was unconsciously tossing from hand to hand as they walked
up-town together.
At this the latter stopped short and looked at the ball in question, as
though now seeing it for the first time.
"Do you know," he said, "I have been so excited and taken up with other
things that I actually forgot I had this ball in my hands. It belongs to
the fellow who gave me that breakfast and your dollar, besides telling
me where to look for something to do. Not only that, but I really
believe if it hadn't been for this ball he would never have paid any
attention to me. You see, we got to passing it; and when I became so
dizzy that I had to sit down, he asked me what was the matter. So he
found out somehow that I was hungry, though I don't remember telling
him, and then insisted on giving me a breakfast."
"Who is he? I mean, what is his name?"
"I don't know. I never thought to ask him. And he doesn't live here
either, but has just come down from Alaska, and was going off in the
one-o'clock train. I do know, though, that he is the very finest chap I
ever met, and I only hope I'll have a chance some time to pay back his
kindness to me by helping some other poor boy."
"It is funny," remarked Bonny, meditatively, "that your friend and my
friend should both have just come from Alaska."
"Isn't it?" replied Alaric; "but then they are travelling together, you
know."
"I didn't know it, though I ought to have suspected it, for they are the
kind who naturally would travel together--the kind, I mean, that give a
fellow an idea of how much real goodness there is in the world, after
all--a sort of travelling sermon, only one that is acted instead of
being preached."
"That's just the way I feel about them," agreed Alaric; "but I wish I
hadn't been so careless about this ball. It may be one that he values
for association's sake, just as I did the one we left in that Siwash
camp."
"Let me have it a moment," said Bonny, who was looking curiously at the
ball.
Alaric handed it to him, and he examined it closely.
"I do believe it is the very one!" he exclaimed. "Yes, I am sure it is.
Don't you remember, Rick, the burned place on your ball that came when
Bah-die dropped it into the fire the first time you threw it at him, and
how you laughed and called it a sure-enough red-hot ball? Well, here's
the place now, and this is certainly the very ball that introduced us to
each other in Victoria."
"How can it be?" asked Alaric, incredulously.
"I don't know, but it surely is."
"Well," said Alaric, finally convinced that his comrade was right, "that
is the very most unexplainable thing I ever came across, for I don't see
how it could possibly have come into his possession."
While discussing this strange happening, the lads approached the hotel
in which one of them had been made to suffer so keenly a few hours
before. He dreaded the very thought of entering it again, but having
made up his mind that he must, was about to do so, when his attention
was attracted to a curious scene in front of the main entrance.
A small, wiry-looking man, evidently a foreigner, was gesticulating,
stamping, and shouting to a group of grinning porters and bell-boys who
were gathered about him. As our lads drew near they saw that he held a
small open book in his hand, from which he was quoting some sentence,
while at the same time he was rapidly working himself into a fury. It
was a French-English phrase-book, in which, under the head of
instructions to servants, the sentence "_Je desire un fiacre_" was
rendered "Call me a hansom," and it was this that the excited Frenchman
was demanding, greatly to the amusement and mystification of his
hearers.
"Call me a hansom! Call me a hansom! Call me a hansom!" he repeated over
and over, at the top of his voice. "_C'est un fiacre--fiacre--fiacre!_"
he shouted. "_Oh, la, la! Mille tonnerres!_ Call me a hansom!"
"He must be crazy," said Bonny; "for he certainly isn't handsome, and
even if he were, he couldn't expect people to call him so. I wonder why
they don't send for the police."
Instead of answering him, Alaric stepped up to the laughing group and
said, politely, "_Pardon, monsieur. C'est Monsieur Filbert, n'est-ce
pas?_"
"_Oui, oui. Je suis Filbert!_ Call me a hansom."
"He wants a carriage," explained Alaric to the porters, who stared
open-mouthed at hearing this young tramp talk to the foreigner in his
own "lingo."
"_Vous voulez une voiture, n'est-ce pas?_" he added, turning to the
stranger.
"Oh, my friend!" cried M. Filbert, in his own language, flinging away
the perplexing phrase-book as he spoke, and embracing Alaric in his joy
at finding himself once more comprehended. "It is as the voice of an
angel from heaven to hear again my own language in this place of
barbarians!"
"Have a care, monsieur," warned Alaric, "how you speak of barbarians.
There are many here who can understand perfectly your language."
"I care not for them! I do not see them! They have not come to me! You
are the first! Can it be that I may engage you to remain and interpret
for me this language of distraction?" Here the speaker drew back, and
scanned Alaric's forlorn appearance hopefully.
"That is what I came to see you about, monsieur," answered Alaric. "I am
looking for employment, and shall be happy----"
"It is enough!" interrupted the other, vehemently. "You have found it. I
engage you now, at once. Come, the carriage is here. Let us enter."
"But," objected the lad, "I have a friend whom I cannot leave."
"Let him come! Let all your friends come! Bring your whole family if you
will, but only stay with me yourself!" cried the Frenchman, impetuously.
"I am distracted by my troubles with this terrible language, and but for
you I shall go crazy. You are my salvation. So enter the carriage, and
your friend. _Apres vous, monsieur._ Do you also speak the language of
the beautiful France? No? It is a great pity."
"Does his royal highness take us for dukes?" questioned the bewildered
Bonny, who, not understanding one word of the foregoing conversation,
had, of course, no idea why he now found himself rolling along the
streets of Tacoma in one of its most luxurious public carriages.
"Not exactly," laughed Alaric; "but he takes us for interpreters--that
is, he wants to engage us as such."
"Oh! Is that it? Well, I'm agreeable. I suppose you told him that I was
pretty well up on Chinook? But what language does he talk himself?"
"French, of course," replied Alaric, "seeing that he is a Frenchman."
"Are you a Frenchman too?"
"Certainly not."
"Well, I didn't know but what you were, seeing that you talk the same
language he does, and just as well, for all that I can make out. Really,
Rick Dale, it is growing interesting to find out the things you know and
can do."
"And the things I still have to learn," laughed Alaric.
Having thus satisfied his curiosity, and learned that he was an
interpreter, the last position in the world for which he would have
applied, Bonny folded his arms, assumed what he considered a proper
attitude for the occasion, and entered upon a calm enjoyment of the
first regular carriage-ride of his life. Nor did he allow the animated
conversation taking place between M. Filbert and Alaric to disturb him
in the least, though by it the whole future course of his life was to be
changed.
Under Alaric's direction the carriage first bore them to the
railway-station, where a number of strange-looking boxes and packages,
all belonging to M. Filbert, were gathered in one place, and given in
charge of a porter, who was instructed to receive and care for any
others that might come marked with the same name. Then the carriage was
again headed up-town, and driven to shop after shop until it seemed as
though the entire resources of the city were to be drawn upon to supply
the multitudinous needs of the mysterious Frenchman.
Among the things thus purchased and ordered sent down to the station
were provisions, cooking utensils, axes, medicines, alcohol, tents,
blankets, ammunition, and clothing.
"I don't know what's up," reflected Bonny, "and I don't care, so long as
Rick says everything is all right; but I should think we were either
going to make war on the Siwash or take a trip to the North Pole."
Of course Alaric accompanied M. Filbert into each store, where his
knowledge of languages was invaluable in conducting the various
negotiations; but the Chinook interpreter, as he called himself, finding
that his services were not yet in demand, was content to remain
luxuriously seated in the carriage. Here he discussed the whole
remarkable performance with the driver, who was certain that the
Frenchman was either going prospecting for gold, or for a new town-site
on which to settle a colony of his countrymen.
During the whole afternoon M. Filbert talked incessantly with his
new-found interpreter, and Alaric seemed almost as excited as he. At
length the former, casting a dubious glance at the lads, asked, with an
apologetic manner, if they were well provided with clothing.
"Only what you see, monsieur," answered Alaric. "Everything else we have
lost."
"Ah! is it so? Then must you be provided with the habiliments necessary.
If you will kindly give the instructions?"
So the carriage was ordered to a shoe-shop and an outfitting
establishment, where both lads, to Bonny's further bewilderment, were
provided with complete suits of rough but warm and serviceable clothing,
including two pairs of walking-boots, one of which was very heavy and
had hob-nailed soles.
These last purchases were not concluded until after sunset, and with
them the business of the day was ended. With many parting injunctions to
Alaric, and a polite _bon nuit_ to both lads, M. Filbert was driven back
to the hotel, leaving his newly engaged assistants to their own devices
for the time being.
"Now," said Bonny, "if you haven't forgotten how to talk United States,
perhaps you will explain what all this means--what we are engaged to do,
what our wages are to be, and where we are bound? Are we to turn
gold-hunters or Indian-fighters, or is it something in the exploring
line?"
"I expect," laughed Alaric, "it is to be more in the climbing line."
"Climbing?"
"Yes. Do you see that mountain over there?" Here Alaric pointed to the
lofty snow-capped peak of Mount Rainier, still rose-tinted with
sunlight, and rising in awful grandeur high above all other summits of
the Cascade range, nearly fifty miles from where they stood.
"Certainly. I can't help seeing it."
"Do you think you could climb it?"
"Of course I could, if it came in my line of business."
"Would you undertake it for thirty dollars a month and all expenses?"
"Rick Dale, I'd undertake to climb to the moon on those terms. But you
are surely joking. The Frenchman will never pay that just for the fun of
seeing us climb."
"Yes he will, though, and I have agreed that we shall start with him for
the top of that mountain to-morrow morning."