“What’s all the row about, Giraffe?” asked Thad, though he had to speak much louder than ordinary on account of the noise made by the increasing mob.
Boys were whooping, women shrieking and chattering as they shook their fists toward the four strangers, and taken in all the prospect was decidedly stormy. No wonder Bumpus was rubbing his chubby hands together, and staring with open mouth at the “tempest in a teapot.”
“I don’t know what ails the sillies!” cried Giraffe, indignantly. “I was trying my best to make them understand that we wanted a dinner and to buy some food. One fellow turned around and shouted something to the others. Then they began to flock about me like people at a county fair do when the snake-charmer comes out of the side-show to give an exhibition with her scaly pets. Say, they even tried to lay hands on me but I shook ’em off!”
“Look here,” said Thad, sternly, “did you try any of your German on them?” demanded Thad.
Giraffe wilted at once.
“Why, yes, I own up I did, Thad!” he confessed. “You see I thought some of them might be able to understand the language, and I bet you they do too; but whee! they acted mad at me. I never thought my German was as rank as that.”
“Don’t you understand that German is in bad favor through Belgium just now? Those who do speak it are trying to forget all they know. When strangers drop into a Belgian village and talk it, with the Kaiser’s army only a few miles away, it’s only natural they suspect us. Now I’ve got to try like everything to set things right.”
So saying Thad turned to the shouting crowd, and held up his hand. Somehow there was something about the boy to inspire confidence. The yelling and jeering gradually died down. Several old men cowed the boys and the women. Possibly they told them to give the stranger a chance to explain.
“Is there any one here who talks English?” called out Thad.
At that an old man pushed his way forward through the crowd. Judging from the deference shown him by the others he must be a person of considerable importance in this humble little village on the river.