Mollie and the Unwiseman Abroad

"What does that mean?" asked Mollie, puzzled.

"He says he has a pain," said Whistlebinkie with a smile.

"Pooh! Bosh – nothing of the sort," retorted the Unwiseman. "Pain is French for bread. When I say 'j'ay le pain' I mean that I've got the bread."

"Are you the jay?" asked Whistlebinkie with mischief in his tone.

"Jay in French is I have – not a bird, stupid," retorted the Unwiseman indignantly.

"Funny way to talk," sniffed Whistlebinkie. "I should think pain would be a better word for pie, or something else that gives you one."

"That's because you don't know," said the Unwiseman. "In addition to the pain I've had oofs."

"Oooffs?" cried Whistlebinkie. "What on earth are oooffs?"

"I didn't say oooffs," retorted the Unwiseman, mocking Whistlebinkie's accent. "I said oofs. Oofs is French for eggs. Chickens lay oofs in France. I had two hard boiled oofs, and my pain had burr and sooker on it."

"Burr and sooker?" asked Mollie, wonderingly.

"I know what burr means – it's French for chestnuts," guessed Whistlebinkie. "He had chestnuts on his bread."

"Nothing of the sort," said the Unwiseman. "Burr is French for butter and has nothing to do with chestnuts. Over here in France a lady goes into a butter store and also says avvy-voo-doo burr, and the man behind the counter says wee, wee, wee, jay-doo-burr. Jay le bonn-burr. That means, yes indeed I've got some of the best butter in the market, ma'am."

"And then what does the lady say?" asked Whistlebinkie.

The Unwiseman's face flushed, and he looked very much embarrassed. It always embarrassed the poor old fellow to have to confess that there was something he didn't know. Unwisemen as a rule are very sensitive.

"That's as far as the conversation went in my French in Five Lessons," he replied. "And I think it was far enough. For my part I haven't the slightest desire to know what the lady said next. Conversation on the subject of butter doesn't interest me. She probably asked him how much it was a pound, however, if not knowing what she said is going to keep you awake nights."

"What's sooker?" asked Mollie.

"Sooker? O that's what the French people call sugar," explained the Unwiseman.

"Pooh!" ejaculated Whistlebinkie, scornfully. "What's the use of calling it sooker? Sooker isn't any easier to say than sugar."

"It's very much like it, isn't it?" said Mollie.

"Yes," said the Unwiseman. "They just drop the H out of sugar, and put in the K in place of the two Gees. I think myself when two words are so much alike as sooker and shoogger it's foolish to make two languages of 'em."

"Tell me something more to eat in French," said Whistlebinkie.

"Fromidge," said the Unwiseman bluntly.

"Fromidge? What's that!" asked Whistlebinkie.

"Cheese," said the Unwiseman. "If you want a cheese sandwich all you've got to do is to walk into a calf – calf is French for restaurant – call the waiter and say 'Un sandwich de fromidge, silver plate,' and you'll get it if you wait long enough. Silver plate means if you please. The French are very polite people."

"But how do you call the waiter?" asked Whistlebinkie.

"You just lean back in a chair and call garkon," said the Unwiseman. "That's what the book says, but I've heard Frenchmen in London call it gas on. I'm going to stick to the book, because it might turn out to be an English waiter and it would be very unpleasant to have him turn the gas on every time you called him."

"I should say so," cried Whistlebinkie. "You might get gas fixturated."

"You never would," said the Unwiseman.

"Anybody who isn't choked by your conversation could stand all the gas fixtures in the world."

"I don't care much for cheese, anyhow," said Whistlebinkie. "Is there any French for Beef?"

"O wee, wee, wee!" replied the Unwiseman. "Beef is buff in French. Donny-moi-de-buff – "

"Donny-moi-de-buff!" jeered Whistlebinkie, after a roar of laughter. "Sounds like baby-talk."

"Well it ain't," returned the Unwiseman severely. "Even Napoleon Bonaparte had to talk that way when he wanted beef and I guess the kind of talk that was good enough for a great Umpire like him is good enough for a rubber squeak like you."

"Then you like French do you, Mr. Me?" asked Mollie.

"Oh yes – well enough," said the Unwiseman. "Of course I like American better, but I don't see any sense in making fun of French the way Fizzledinkie does. It's got some queer things about it like calling a cat a chat, and a man a homm, and a lady a femm, and a dog a chi-enn, but in the main it's a pretty good language as far as I have got in it. There are one or two things in French that I haven't learned to say yet, like 'who left my umbrella out in the rain,' and 'has James currycombed the saddle-horse with the black spot on his eye and a bob-tail this morning,' and 'was that the plumber or the piano tuner I saw coming out of the house of your uncle's brother-in-law yesterday afternoon,' but now that I'm pretty familiar with it I'm glad I learned it. It is disappointing in some ways, I admit. I've been through French in Five Lessons four times now, and I haven't found any conversation in it about Kitchen-Stoves, which is going to be very difficult for me when I get to Paris and try to explain to people there how fine my kitchen-stove is. I'm fond of that old stove, and when these furriners begin to talk to me about the grandness of their country, I like to hit back with a few remarks about my stove, and I don't just see how I'm going to do it."

"What's sky-scraper in French?" demanded Whistlebinkie suddenly.

"They don't have sky-scrapers in French," retorted the old gentleman. "So your question, like most of the others you ask, is very very foolish."

"You think you can get along all right then, Mr. Me?" asked Mollie, gazing proudly at the old man and marvelling as to the amount of study he must have done in two days.

"I can if I can only get people talking the way I want 'em to," replied the Unwiseman. "I've really learned a lot of very polite conversation. For instance something like this:

"Do you wish to go anywhere?

No I do not wish to go anywhere.

Why don't you wish to go somewhere?

Because I've been everywhere.

You must have seen much.

No I have seen nothing.

Is not that rather strange?

No it is rather natural.

Why?

Because to go everywhere one must travel too rapidly to see anything."

"That you see," the Unwiseman went on, "goes very well at a five o'clock tea. The only trouble would be to get it started, but if I once got it going right, why I could rattle it off in French as easy as falling off a log."