Page:Anderson--Isle of seven moons.djvu/186

174 "Who d'ya think yuh are, pulling this Robinson Croosoe stuff? It'd go big at Miner's, but as a real honest-to-Gawd journey, it doesn't make a hit with me."

She seconded this declaration with the queer twitchings of shoulder and hip, which, the stranger had observed, were the heart and soul of American dancing. A queer lot, but as amusing to him, in pantomime and patois, as a band of rioters in a Nice carnival to a Yankee tourist. It all depends on the point of view. The unfamiliar is always refreshing.

The leader admonished her in the same incomprehensible dialect:

"It'll do you good, Carlotta, to see some foam besides that you blow off glasses."

To this, the exotic but amusing Carmen responded that "steppin' on Broadway suited her better'n rollin' on the deep," also that "she didn't speak no language like the wild sea waves."

There was more argument, then her further declaration:

"I know, Mac, but there are some things I won't pull, an' shopliftin' a young steam yacht is one of 'em."

The Legionnaire was decidedly bewildered. Such sentences had never appeared in any conversational grammar he had studied, yet he had been told that he spoke perfect English. He began to think that his professors had been badly chosen, or else that the only way to study any tongue was in the natural habitat. But the next demand from the leader was more to the point.

"Here, let's look at that chart."