Page:The Innocents Abroad (1869).djvu/112

 “Well, go on, go on,” he said, “don’t mind me. I don’t wish to interfere. Only, if you go on telling him in your kind of French, he never will find out where we want to go to. That is what I think about it.”

We rebuked him severely for this remark, and said we never knew an ignorant person yet but was prejudiced. The Frenchman spoke again, and the doctor said:

“There now, Dan, he says he is going to allez to the douain. Means he is going to the hotel. Oh, certainly—we don’t know the French language.”

This was a crusher, as Jack would say. It silenced further criticism from the disaffected member. We coasted past the sharp bows of a navy of great steamships, and stopped at last at a government building on a stone pier. It was easy to remember then that the douain was the custom-house, and not the hotel. We did not mention it, however. With winning French politeness, the officers merely opened and closed our satchels, declined to examine our passports, and sent us on our way. We stopped at the first café we came to, and entered. An old woman seated us at a table and waited for orders. The doctor said:

“Avez-vous du vin?”

The dame looked perplexed. The doctor said again, with elaborate distinctness of articulation:

“Avez-vous du—vin!”

The dame looked more perplexed than before. I said:

“Doctor, there is a flaw in your pronunciation somewhere. Let me try her. Madame, avez-vous du vin?—It isn’t any use, doctor—take the witness.”

“Madame, avez-vous du vin—ou fromage—pain—pickled pigs’ feet—beurre—des œfs—du beuf—horse-radish, sour-crout, hog and hominy—any thing, any thing in the world that can stay a Christian stomach!”

She said:

“Bless you, why didn’t you speak English before?—I don’t know anything about your plagued French!”

The humiliating taunts of the disaffected member spoiled