Page:Rideout--Beached keels.djvu/287

Rh Or perhaps, when the medical fisher had been quieted with the loan of a tobacco-pipe, their talk wandered into foreign lands. Captain Christy came in seldom now, and said almost nothing; so Mr. Gildersleeve, second only to him as a great traveler, bore off the honors.

"And so we run clos' in, and fired our muskuts right amongst the bazzarr there on the shore, and wore ship and stood out to sea," he would conclude.

"But how could ye git along," propounded the skeptical Mr. Laurel, "in them foreign places where they dunno how to talk?"

"Learnt the lingo," drawled the storyteller scornfully. "Wha'd ye think? Follerin' the sea, a man picks up lots o' the dead languages."

"Give us some Dutch," challenged a listener.

"Wee gates," said Bunty, with readiness. "Much as to say, 'How's the boy?'—I know some Spanish, too."

"Let's hear ye," scoffed the cobbler, in a tone of profound unbelief.