“You are Bardek—” “Chuck” began. “Bardek!” echoed the major. “You know me, then?” The shoulders lifted slightly. “Bardek, c’est vraiment moi! Bardek! C’est ça! Commandant! Soixante-dixsept régiment!!” The shoulders went higher and prouder with each phrase, his whole suite following him in exact imitation. “Tr-r-oisième bataillon!!! Chasseur a pied!!!!” But the proud picture soon dissolved in swift laughter. “At the service of m’sieu’ le capitaine,” he bowed. “Le commandant is complimented that m’sieu’ le capitaine should remember his acquaintance. We have perhaps met in France?”
“It was in America, Bardek!” Captain Williams insisted. “Don’t try any of your infernal jokes on me. It was in Cresheim Valley! At Mount Airy! And what’s all this nonsense about not knowing English!”
Bardek waited patiently for the interpreter to make the speech into French. “It was perhaps my grandfather,” he shrugged politely. “America I do not know. Always,” he touched his heart lightly, “always I have lived in France.” And from that he could not be budged.
Nevertheless, he ate the captain’s luncheon, he and his gay “devils”—“Chuck” was the envy of the whole restaurant—meanwhile telling him, in a French which was painfully slowed up for foreign ears, all the news of all the world. There were staccato, rapid-fire asides, to be sure, which drew roars from his companions; but he would not step out of the rôle of Frenchman. Many times he repeated, with varying grades of fervor, “Always I have lived in France!”
At “Chuck’s” final handshake, however, he relented. “Vive la France!” said “Chuck,” gripping him hard. “La Fr-r-rance!” growled Bardek. They shook hands ferociously. Then the major leaned over—“Chuck” thought he was about to be kissed!—to whisper solemnly in his ear, “And you will give my loave to ol’ Mack, if he be still alive, an’ to the Professor, and to the good Goargass, and you will tell her to be vair-r-y care-ful of herself. She is now too ol’ a woman to go splashing in rivers when it is yet April!”
He left in a storm of basso laughter.
H. M.
Fort McHenry,
Maryland, U. S. A.
CONTENTS
| BOOK ONE | ||
|---|---|---|
| THE GOLDEN CHILD | ||
| CHAPTER | PAGE | |
| I | Legs | [ 11] |
| II | Gypsies! | [ 29] |
| III | The Old Paper-Mill | [ 39] |
| IV | “That Not Impossible She” | [ 46] |
| V | Bardek | [ 59] |
| VI | Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité | [ 72] |
| VII | A “French Day” at Night | [ 85] |
| VIII | “My Theory Is—” | [ 98] |
| IX | “Bong-jour” | [ 110] |
| X | Honorificabilitudinitatibus | [ 123] |
| BOOK TWO | ||
| THE HIDDEN RIVER | ||
| XI | Sixteen | [ 143] |
| XII | Mixed Rendezvous | [ 152] |
| XIII | Topic Number Four | [ 165] |
| XIV | A Morris Day | [ 180] |
| XV | The Lady of the Interruption | [ 195] |
| BOOK THREE | ||
| THE CALL TO BE FREE | ||
| XVI | Rats! | [ 221] |
| XVII | An Unexpected Bingle | [ 233] |
| XVIII | A Parable of Ignorance | [ 249] |
| XIX | Tobogganing | [ 261] |
| XX | A Connoisseur of Joy | [ 278] |
| XXI | Eve’s Choice | [ 292] |
| XXII | Top-o’-the-Hill | [ 302] |
| BOOK FOUR | ||
| CANAAN | ||
| XXIII | My Lord and Eke My Master | [ 323] |
| XXIV | The Hold-up | [ 331] |
| XXV | Dago | [ 339] |
| XXVI | The Biologist and the Puritan | [ 353] |
| XXVII | Tzoo-oom! | [ 368] |
| XXVIII | The Midnight Express | [ 385] |
| XXIX | “Straight! Straight! Straight! Straight!” | [ 401] |