Page:Diary of a Pilgrimage (1891).pdf/54

 "Well, I am glad to see you again!" I cried. "Well, this is pleasant! I thought I had lost you!"

"Why, you are English!" cried out the old gentleman in the white hat, in very good Saxon, on hearing me speak to B.

"Well, I know that," I replied, "and I'm proud of it. Have you any objection to my being English?"

"Not in the least," he answered, "if you'd only talk English instead of Norwegian. I'm English myself;" and he walked away, evidently much puzzled.

B. said to me, as we sat down:

"I'll tell you what's the matter with you, J.—you know too many languages for this continent. Your linguistic powers will be the ruin of us if you don't hold them in a bit. You don't know any Sanscrit or Chaldean, do you?"

I replied that I did not.

"Any Hebrew or Chinese?"

"Not a word."

"Sure?"

"Not so much as a full stop in any of them."

"That's a blessing," said B., much relieved. "You would be trying to palm off one or other of them on some simple-minded peasant for German, if you did!"

It is a wearisome journey, through the long, hot hours of the morning, to Cologne. The carriage is stifling. Railway travellers, I have always noticed, regard fresh air as