“It would be worse to lie up for ever in de churchyard,” answered Conrad oracularly, as he lit his pipe.
“I suppose it would—but, I say, Conrad, how is it you fellows all talk such good English? Where the dickens do you learn it?”
“We learn it in de vinter. We make a class.”
“But who teaches you? Do you get hold of an Englishman?”
“No. It is a Swiss—a Swiss who has been five years in America. But,” added the guide, naïvely, “I don’t tink his pronunciation is very good.”
Meanwhile, Fordham and Peter were making their way down the wild and desolate Trift-thal in the moonlight.
“I never did see de Rothhorn so bad for de shtones as to-day,” grumbled the latter. “Dey come down, oh, like a devil.”
“It’s unfortunate, but one consolation is that it was nobody’s fault. It was sheer ill-luck, Peter, and you or Conrad might equally well have been hit.”
“No, it is nobody’s fault,” assented Peter. “But, if anyting goes wrong with de gentleman dere are always peoples what say it is de guide’s fault. But dat is just de very ting no guide can help—de falling shtones. We get over de place as quick as we can, but we can’t run. Ach!” he concluded, with a disgusted shake of the head.