CHAPTER XIII
Advice and Bluff
"No, no, boy. Not 'la silence' but 'le silence'."
"But, sir," protested the boy, "it's according to rule; it ends in a silent 'e'."
"An exception, Beverley," explained Mr. Jaques. "An exception. One of the peculiarities of the French language. But this might help you to remember. Silence is one of the things that a woman cannot keep, therefore the French place that word in the masculine gender——"
"I say, sir," interrupted Dick Beverley. "Look at that moth. Rather late for this time of year, isn't it?"
"Never mind the moth," said his house-master. "You'll see plenty of varieties of moths during the next few months," he sighed, envious of the high-spirited youth. "Now, say in French: 'Will you kindly tell me the way to the police-station'. Good; 'poste' has two different meanings: 'post-office' and 'police-station', according to gender. Now say the same sentence in Italian. H'm, yes, passable. You have that written slip of directions the Head gave you? And your Italian passport: you're keeping that in a different pocket to your notes? And don't address strangers on Continental railways. If in doubt ask someone in uniform. All railway officials are in uniform on the other side of the Channel, you know."
Dick Beverley nodded. Already the well-meaning Mr. Jaques had dinned the various and somewhat bewildering instructions and injunctions into his excited head at least half a dozen times between Charing Cross and Folkestone. But the boy's brain had closed its doors, temporarily at least, to the advice of his house-master. On the eve of a vast adventure it is often so, although before long a confidant would be welcome.
"Monsieur Deschamps will meet you at the Gare du Nord," continued Mr. Jaques. "The journey across Paris is the most difficult part of the business, but that difficulty will, I trust, be eliminated. I believe there is a wagon lit straight through from Paris to Brindisi."
Dick again nodded, but his attention was centred on the animated harbour as viewed from the lounge of the hotel.
"From Brindisi," resumed the master, "you proceed to Taranto. If the Titania should not be there, what do you do?"
"Stop at the Hotel d'Annunzio, Strada Miratore," replied Dick promptly. He knew that bit.
"That is so," agreed the pedantic Mr. Jaques; "and above all, be discreet. Remember what I told you about 'silence'. I was given to understand, during a brief interview with your brother, that absolute discretion is necessary—not only for your own welfare but for the people you are about to join. Remember also to keep your French paper money in a different compartment of your pocket-book from your Italian notes, and examine your change carefully. There is a lot of bad money about in those countries, I believe."
"Like a lot of bacon we get in England, sir," added the irrepressible youth.
Mr. Jaques nodded. He could well afford to be sympathetic on that subject.
"You have your keys, I hope," he asked, returning to the lengthy exhortation to a juvenile traveller. "The douaniers—custom-house people—will want to examine your luggage, you know."
Dick produced the keys; a large jack-knife, a catapult, and a piece of whip-cord were disclosed during the operation.
"You had better let me have that catapult," observed the house-master. "I cannot conceive why you should want to take a thing like that away with you, especially as the possession of a catapult is an offence against the rules of the school."
Beverley junior surrendered the catapult cheerfully. After all it was one of three that he carried about his person.
Ten minutes later Mr. Jaques and Dick parted company on board the cross-Channel steamer, the former to return with a feeling that he had carried out a duty conscientiously, the latter realizing at last that he was actually on the threshold of a big adventure.
Dick remained on deck. Even the strong desire to go below, to see if he could prevail upon the engineer to allow him to enter the engine-room, was not enough to tear him from the sight of the receding shores of Kent and the constant stream of shipping passing to and fro on one of the main arteries of the world's maritime trade.
He was a high-spirited youth, no better and no worse than the average British schoolboy. He had received his colours at "footer", was a moderate bat, could swim and box, and could ride almost any make of motor-cycle and understand its mechanism as well. True, he hadn't a motor-bike of his own, for the simple reason that funds wouldn't run to it, but his unfailing good nature and ability to undertake repairing jobs were sufficient to give him the run of the majority of motor-cycles belonging to his fellow-boarders.
Normally he was open and inclined to be communicative, but, with Mr. Jaques' warning somewhere in the back of his brain, it was not surprising that he showed a tendency to "choke off" an attempt at conversation on the part of a fellow-passenger on the Folkestone-Boulogne boat.
"Your name's Beverley, isn't it?" inquired the stranger. Dick had noticed him in the foyer of the hotel.
"Yes," he replied shortly. "He can see that by reading the labels on my luggage," he added mentally.
"I know your father," continued the stranger. "My name's Wilson."
"Really," rejoined Dick. "You didn't speak to him in the hotel, did you?"
"No," was the answer, after a moment's hesitation. "I saw you were both talking very earnestly, and naturally one doesn't like to butt in on the eve of parting."
Dick considered. Either the "old buffer" had made a genuine mistake or else he was trying to "pump him". Possibly the latter.
"I'm going as far as Brindisi to meet my daughter from Egypt," continued Mr. Wilson. "You are going farther, I see?"
"Yes, to Taranto," replied Dick. "Cruising in the Mediterranean."
"Then you are one of the Titania's party."
"Am I?" rejoined the lad.
The stranger smiled.
"Of course you are," he said. "And you are going farther than the Mediterranean, I believe."
"We were," declared Dick mendaciously, for he considered himself quite justified in bluffing the fellow. "We were, but the long cruise has been abandoned. Don't know why."
"You'll be quite a traveller. Have you journeyed on the Continent before?"
Dick shook his head.
"No? Then I'll have to give an eye to you," continued Mr. Wilson. "Rather a long journey without having anyone to talk to."
"Don't think I'd take it on if I were you, Mr. Wilson," said Dick in a well-simulated, confidential tone. "You see, I'm let out before I ought to be. I only came out of the sanny yesterday."
"The sanny?" queried Mr. Wilson, in perplexity.
"Yes, that is the sanatorium, you know," explained Dick, warming to his part. "Scarlet fever; 'fraid I haven't quite finished peeling yet."
"Er—er—I don't quite understand," murmured the stranger uneasily, moving back a pace.
"Of course with proper precautions it may be all right," continued the fever-stricken youth cheerfully. "I've been cautioned to keep to the lee side of the boat so that the germs—beastly things germs—don't get blown on the people. In the train I've got to keep the window open at night, if other passengers don't object, and sniff carbolic powder. But I'll be free from infection by the time we get to Brindisi, I expect."
Chuckling to himself, Dick watched Mr. Wilson beat a hurried retreat.
"If I'd taken old Jaques' advice about keeping silence I'd have had to have been awfully rude," he soliloquized. "As it is, I've put the wind up him. Wonder who he is? And he said he knows my father, too. That's rich!"
He did not see Mr. Wilson again, save for a glimpse of his back at the Gare du Nord, during the journey to the south of Italy. "Mr. Wilson", or to give him his real name, Herr Kaspar von Giespert, thought fit to alter his proposed route, for instead of proceeding via Brindisi he booked to Marseilles, hoping to catch a Messageries boat to Singapore.
It was a pure coincidence that von Giespert and Dick were fellow-passengers on the Folkestone-Boulogne boat, but Mr. Jaques' over-cautious exhortation had given the Hun a clue. Happening to hear the word Titania, von Giespert pricked up his ears. He decided to sound the open-faced British boy; he might have succeeded but for an initial false move in assuming that Jaques was Dick's parent.
Von Giespert was cooling his heels at the southern French seaport days after Dick Beverley joined the yacht Titania at Taranto.