“Och! it was a sort, yes,” the shoulders shrugged cynically; “but it was German, the speech of my country.”
“But you are not German, are you?” persisted Blynn. “Yesterday you were—”
“Ach! Must man be ever the same? Yesterday was I French; gut! Heute bin ich wirklich deutsch. Auch gut! Morgen, vielleicht, bin ich italienisch! Hora è sempre!”
“What does he say?” inquired “Chuck.”
“My good boy,” Bardek explained in clear English. “Yesterday I have been French. Good! It pleased me so to be. The day was French,” flourishing his hands about the sky, “quite French. Today it pleases me to be German. How could anyone be anything but German on a day like this?” waving again toward the thick, white clouds and indicating the cool Northern breeze. “Ein tousand ein hunderd ein und zwanzig! Was!... Now at this moment am I North-German; soon,” he squinted at a gathering darkness in the southwest, “I am becoming Bayrischer. It rains ever in München; nicht wahr? Ach! München is a heaven of earth—rain, rain, rain, warm himmlischer rain on the outside, and bier, bier, cool, dunkels Löwenbraü on the inside!”
His voice was heavy and deep, the bass singing quality always present, and his intonation noticeably distinct like that of the book-read foreigner. He struck his consonants hard, as if he enjoyed them, especially the final t’s and s’s; his l’s trolled along the roof of his mouth; and he breathed his vowels sonorously.
He laughed as he stepped into the path, and added, still addressing the boy,
“When the sky is all of blue and pink, so am I Italian. My skin changes. I am then a new beast. Oh! It is good to change the skin and the mind. Boy, don’t you get sick to be always the American beast?”
“Not on your tin-type!” “Chuck” spoke up promptly. “I don’t want to be a Dutchman. Rather be what I am. But it’s fun talking Dutch with Mr. Blynn.”
“‘Not on your tin-type,’” echoed Bardek, eyes extended in mock surprise. “Was für eine Sprache! What a language!”