“Who would have thought I should be recognized in the street?” Frank said, with some vexation. “They stared at me as if I were some wild animal.”
“Hang me ef yeou ain’t as famous as a Spanish toreador!” exclaimed Ephraim, proudly. “I ruther guess they’ll begin to think Yankees kin do some things.”
“Be quiet,” commanded Frank. “Don’t be so ready to tell every one that we are Yankees.”
Ephraim looked at his companion in profound astonishment.
“I be jeewizzled!” he gurgled. “Yeou ain’t ashamed uv it, be ye?”
“Not in the least, but Yankees are not thought much of in this country, and there is no reason why we should go around seeking trouble by proclaiming everywhere that we are from the United States. Caution is not cowardice.”
“Thutteration! Never heard yeou talk like that afore! Yeou ain’t generally any too cautious, b’gosh!”
“You never knew me to go around seeking trouble, Ephraim. I intend to avoid danger when it is possible. After I get into a scrape I want to see it through. It is the foolish fellow that does foolhardy things when there is no need of it. If such a person should suddenly and unexpectedly find himself in a position of great peril, he would be liable to lose his nerve. At school, as you know, it was not the fellow who walked nearest the brink of a precipice to astonish and awe his companions who always turned out to be the pluckiest lad of them all. If suddenly called on to risk his life to save that of another, it might be the fellow who kept farthest from the brink who first dashed to the rescue.”
“Wal,” drawled Ephraim, “yeou’re the funniest feller I ever see! Sometimes I jest think I be thoroughly acquainted with ye, an’ then again some other time I think I don’t know ye at all. Yeou’re fuller uv contradictions than a bar’l uv old cider is uv jags.”
Frank laughed, and ordered some chocolate and cakes of a waiter. The boys were quickly served with chocolate and bollos, as the little cakes were called. On the top of each cup of chocolate a little milk was swimming, but the chocolate itself was almost as thick as molasses, and it was hot enough to burn one’s throat.