Bessie's Fortune

"You ought to have heard father try to talk French," he said. "It was enough to kill one with laughing. He bought a little book and would study some phrase, and then fire it off at the waiters, screaming at the top of his voice, as if that would make them understand better; and once it was too funny. We were in a shop in Lucerne, and father wanted to know the price of something, so he held it up before a little dapper man with blue eyes and yellow hair, and said, 'Com-bi-on'--that's the way he pronounced it--'com-bi-on;' but the man didn't com-bi-on worth a cent, and only stared at him as if he thought him a lunatic. Then father tried again, and yelled as loud as he could, 'Pree--pree! how much-ee, much-ee?' Then there was a glimmer of a smile on the man's face, and when father, wholly out of patience, roared out, 'Damnation, are you a fool?' he replied, 'No, but I'm a Yankee like yourself, and the price of the carving is twenty-five francs;' and, sure enough, he was a chap from Maine. After that father always asked them first if they parlez-vous-ed English. Mother got on better, because she knew more of the language, and always gave a twist to the words which made them sound Frenchy; but she was afraid to talk much, for fear she'd make a mistake and Miss Grundy would laugh at her. She is awfully afraid of Miss Grundy, especially if the genus homo happens to be English. But I did not care. I wanted to learn, and I studied in the railway car, and at the table, and in bed, and had a teacher when we staid long enough in a place, and then I plunged in, mistake or no mistake, and talked to everybody. I used to sit on the box with the driver when we drove, so as to talk to him, and you have no idea what a lot you pick up that way, or how glad they are to help you; and now, though I do not suppose I always use good grammar or get the right accent, I can parlez with the best of them, and can speak German, too, a little. I think I have improved some; don't you, auntie."

Of course she did, and she told him so, and smiled fondly upon the bright, handsome boy, knowing that in what he said of himself there was neither conceit nor vanity, but a frankness and openness which she liked to see in him.

"And now for grandpa," he suddenly exclaimed, "he will think I am never coming."