Cæsar was trying again. His voice barely carried to the balcony.
"_Mon femme est ici,_" he asserted with decidedly American accent.
"_Je demander ou est elle a!_"
The stout lady gestured hopelessly. Sicily again inquired of her
guide what Cæsar was saying.
"I do not know, madame. The words they may be French but the sound
is English and the meaning is absent."
Cæsar turned helplessly to Florian Slappey.
"You is smart, Florian--you try. An' tell her us ain't to be fooled
with."
Mr. Slappey spoke without hesitation. "_Femme!_" he announced.
"_Très bon femme! Vous cacher ou? Vous respondez_ or we _est_ going
to staht somethin'. _Comprez?_"
The woman did not comprez. Neither did the bewildered Fernand on the
balcony. "If they would not talk French!" he wailed. "I can speak
French and therefore I cannot understand what they say."
Cæsar was glaring hostilely at the proprietress. To his way of
thinking, both he and Mr. Slappey had spoken clearly and perfectly in
French. It was inconceivable that they should not be readily
understood. Therefore he believed that her look of blankness was
affected to trick him.
Mr. Clump tried again. He raised his fists and shook them in the
startled face of the fat Algerian lady. French verbs and nouns and
adjectives tumbled all over the room. Nobody understood what he was
saying, but it was obvious that he was exceedingly wrathy and on the
verge of precipitating trouble.
From the back of the stage the large gentleman uncoiled himself and
ostentatiously placed his drum on the floor. Standing, he seemed
even more formidable than when seated. His more-than-two-hundred
pounds of sinew moved forward and hovered over the irate Cæsar.
He spoke in his native tongue. The words fell softly as snowflakes,
but the eyes were level and cold. Ordinarily, the three colored
gentlemen from Birmingham would have retreated in more or less good
order, but now--confronted by the possibility of genuine danger to
Sicily--no such thought entered their heads. Cæsar returned stare
for stare.
"You long-drawed-out cracklin'!" he observed scathingly. "Thinkin'
you can scare us!"
He stepped away and motioned the others into a conference. His voice
dropped to a whisper.
"They is prob'ly holdin' Sicily prisoner," he announced. "I'se gwine
find her, an' it'll take the whole Algiers army to stop me--let alone
that tall boy. Is you-all with me, or does you crave to beat it
befo' the action stahts?"
Florian hitched his belt together. "Reckon if you is boun' to git
kilt, you could use a li'l comp'ny."
Mr. Fizz was equally ready, but his brain continued to function.
"Befo' the row commences," he suggested, "le's go drag Opus Randall
in heah. He's got plenty beef an' we can use him."