"Cigare, cigare!" The conductor gesticulated toward the window.
"Oh!" Merrihew took the cigar from his teeth and went through the pantomime of tossing it out of the window.
"Si, si!" assented the conductor, delighted that he was finally understood.
"You might have given me the tip," Merrihew grumbled across to Hillard. He viewed the halfburnt perfecto ruefully and filliped it through the window. "How should I know smoking was prohibited?"
"You had your joke; this is mine. Besides, I remained silent to the advantage of your future education. The conductor has spoken to you in four languages—Italian, French, German and Dutch." Hillard then spoke to the conductor. "May not my friend smoke so long as ladies do not enter?"
"Certainly, since it does not annoy you." Then the conductor bowed and disappeared into the next compartment.
Merrihew inscribed on the back of an envelope, for future reference, the four phrases, and in ten minutes had, with the assistance of his preceptor, mastered their pronunciations.
"I wish I had been born a hotel concierge," he said mournfully. "They speak all languages, and the Lord knows where they find the time to learn them."
"The Englishman, the Parisian and the American are the poorest linguists," said Hillard. "They are altogether too well satisfied with themselves and their environments to bother learning any language but their own, and most Americans do not take the trouble to do that."
"Hear, hear!"