"Maybe you didn't, and again maybe you did," retorted the lad rather tartly. "If you keep on playing your monkey shines on me, you'll get me sore pretty soon, and I'll be tempted to cloud up and rain all over you. And there'll be considerable dunder und blitzen along with the cyclonic disturbance in the atmosphere," he added.
"All right," was the calm response. "You iss hungry. Maybe you vant someding to eat. Yes? Or maybe not?"
"Great frozen hot boxes!" cried Jimmie in a despairing tone. "I don't see how, with all the scarcity of ivory in the market, the billiard ball makers let you roam about at large so long. Why," he added with rising indignation, "you're giving the exact symptoms of a chap who is ossified from the shoulders to the sky! Of course I want to eat, and I'd be de-lighted to perform that simple operation now."
"But to eat before mess, it is verboten," declared the guide.
"Say," retorted Jimmie, "just let me have your name and the address of any relatives you want notified in case of accident. Something is going to blow up pretty soon, and when the explosion is over they'll go around with a sponge to gather up the pieces of the innocent bystanders. Among those present was a former waiter at Dick Stein's."
"Ach, yes," slowly replied the other. "My name iss Otto von Freundlich. In America I am called Friendly Otto. It iss so in der telephone book. Names iss backwards put down."
"Well, if you'll just be good enough to get me one of those nice large German pancakes that we used to get at Stein's, with a couple of cups of coffee and a little 'T' bone steak well done, with some fried potatoes and a side order of cauliflower in cream, some cold slaw, a little lettuce, some lentils, and a small platter of sauer kraut, I'll try to worry along until mess time. Can't we eat at all?"
"No, not all of dot," soberly responded Otto seriously, evidently believing that Jimmie intended to eat everything he had mentioned.
"Then for pity's sake tell me what I can have. I'm getting so hungry I could almost eat the wheels off this wagon."
"Maybe a little soup und some rye bread?" replied Otto inquiringly.