Page:Travel letters from New Zealand, Australia and Africa (1913).djvu/391

 an old traveler, and knows how to handle ship servants. He eats more food, and drinks more wine, than any other human being I have ever been acquainted with. But he is a very polite man, and speaks German as well as French, so that he is of the greatest assistance when I get into difficulty with the German waiters. He is always buying champagne, and has five or six boxes of cigars in his cabin. He usually has not only his waiter hovering over him when in the dining-room, but the chief steward as well, and his capacity for getting what he wants is so great that he amuses me, although an electrical engineer at the same table is mad at him, and talks about a personal encounter I visited Mozambique with Sammy Marks, the theatrical manager from Capetown, and theatrical men are usually able to get what is coming to them. But Sammy Marks could not find a ricksha for hire in Mozambique. We saw plenty of rickshas, but were told that they were privately owned. Just as we acknowledged that rickshas were an impossibility in Mozambique, along came the Frenchman in one. Learning that Mrs. Marks and Adelaide were very tired, he gallantly turned his vehicle over to them. He went away for a few minutes, but soon came back riding in another ricksha, and continued with us in it until we returned to the boat-landing. Mrs. Marks speaks French like a native, having been born in Paris, and when I make a remark at table that interests her, she translates it to the Frenchman. One day I was asked to tell an "American story," and it happened to greatly amuse Mr. and Mrs. Marks. The Frenchman did not catch the "story," saying I talked too fast in telling it.