The dining room was very plain and simple in all its arrangements. There was no carpet on the floor, and the woodwork was unpainted. There were two windows in front, which looked out upon the lake. Directly beneath the windows was the road, and the open space, already described, between the hotel and the pier.
There was a boy with a knapsack on his back standing by the window, looking out. Rollo went to the window, and began to look out too.
"Do you speak English?" said Rollo to the boy.
"Nein," said the boy, shaking his head.
Nein is the German word for no. This Rollo knew very well, and so he inferred that the boy was a German. He, however, thought it possible that he might speak French, and so he asked again,—
"Do you speak French?"
"Very little," said the boy, answering now in the French language. "I am studying it at school. I am at school at Berne, and my class is making an excursion to Geneva."
"Do you travel on foot?" asked Rollo.
"Yes," said the boy; "unless there is a steamboat, and then we go in the steamboat."
"And I suppose you are going to take the steamboat here to-morrow morning to go to Geneva."