The traveller turned away in disgust.
"Och, to hell wi' you; ye're ay tying your lace!" he said.
Lots of people cannot see the joke in this yarn, and I challenge anyone to explain the point.
* * * * *
Good fortune came to rescue me from sorrowing over my lost school. It sent me to Holland thuswise: about five hundred Famine Area children were coming from Vienna to England, and I was invited to become one of the escort. Then it struck me that I might go over earlier and have a look at the Dutch schools. I hastened to get a few passport photographs; I looked at them . . . and then I thought I shouldn't risk going. However, on second thoughts, I decided to risk it, and went to the passport office. There a gentleman with a big cigar looked at the photograph; then he looked at me.
"The face of a criminal," his eyes seemed to say as he studied the photo.
"Isn't it like me?" I asked in alarm.
"Quite a good likeness," he said brusquely, and passed me on to the next pigeon-hole.
At last I landed in Flushing, and a kind guard found me a carriage. There I began to learn the Dutch language. "Niet rooken." Scots reek means smoke: hurrah! "do not smoke!"
"Verbodden te spuwen." "It is forbidden to——" no, that wouldn't be nice! Got it! "Do not spit!"