“Well, I know that,” I replied, “and I’m proud of it. Have you any objection to my being English?”
“Not in the least,” he answered, “if you’d only talk English instead of Norwegian. I’m English myself;” and he walked away, evidently much puzzled.
B. said to me as we sat down:
“I’ll tell you what’s the matter with you, J.—you know too many languages for this continent. Your linguistic powers will be the ruin of us if you don’t hold them in a bit. You don’t know any Sanscrit or Chaldean, do you?”
I replied that I did not.
“Any Hebrew or Chinese?”
“Not a word.”
“Sure?”
“Not so much as a full stop in any of them.”
“That’s a blessing,” said B., much relieved. “You would be trying to palm off one or other of them on some simple-minded peasant for German, if you did!”