Page:Far from the Maddening Girls.djvu/48

 by all odds, the most moving day in my experience. I went down from town, of course, to see the work begun, and at the first fall of the pick such a thrill ran through me as I am sure must have coursed through the system of De Lesseps when the initial spadeful of earth was stirred on the Isthmus of Panama. I looked, almost with affection, upon the sturdy labourer who was responsible for this first pick-nick in the vicinity of my future home, and, when I had an opportunity, addressed him in a friendly manner.

“Fine day, my man.”

He looked at me with the peculiar vacuity observable in the eye of a dried mackerel, and answered:

“Non capisco.”

The conversation had been neither prolonged nor, in any sense, spirited, but it was, nevertheless, at an end, for his remark not only acquainted me with his inability to comprehend the English language, but it