“Oh, never mind the papers!” I said, shortly. “Can’t you speak English?”
“Alas, monsieur, no!”
“Speak French, then!”
My quick speaking rather confused the fellow, who said that he was without bread, and without asylum; that he was a tourneur and ebeniste (turner, worker in ebony and ivory, and cabinet-maker in general) by trade, that he was a stranger, and wished to raise sufficient money to enable him to return to France.
“Why did you come over to England?” I asked.
“I came to work in London,” he said, after pretending not to understand my question the first time.
“Where?” I inquired.
At first I understood him to answer Sheffield, but I at last made out that he meant Smithfield.
“What was your master’s name?”
“I do not comprehend, monsieur—if monsieur will deign to read—”