"Well, look at them fellers. Ef my farm hands was to work that way I'd not get enough corn to feed my Jerseys a month."
"A FIGHT, A FIGHT!"
He was quite disgusted with their slow and listless movements. They returned down another aisle and came out in front of the magnificent doorway of the building. They were just behind two elegantly dressed ladies, who were looking up at the decorations.
"Well, upon me wohd, do obswerve that dohway. How intwesting. I am shuah it seems to me to be pewfectly supub. It is so lovie, so sreet."
"O Grandpa," said Johnny, "do tell me what language they are talking."
"I don't know, Johnny; ask Fanny."
John's attention was here caught by the loud arguments of some gondoliers at the landing near by, and he ran down to see the fight he was sanguine enough to believe was about to take place.
They made noise enough to be sure but perhaps this was their way of attracting attention. There were at least a dozen excited foreigners gesticulating over some exciting topic. Evidently some foreigner had been riding and he thought the fare was too high. Noise and genteel swearing were the chief argument.
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They swore in German, French and Russian; In Greek, Italian, Spanish, Prussian; In Turkish, Swedish, Japanese— You never heard such oaths as these. They scolded, railed and imprecated, Abased, defied and execrated; With malediction, ban and curse They simply went from bad to worse; Carramba! O, bismillah! Sacre! (And ones than which these aren't a marker.) The very air with curses quivered As each his favorite oath delivered; A moment's pause for breath, and then Each buckled up and cursed again. |