“You are exceedingly good,” I replied, “but it would be of no use. I am so frightened of those men in blue coats and big mustaches. I should not be able to say a word to any of them.”
“German is sometimes not unlike English.”
“It is like nothing to me, except a great mystery.”
“Billet, is ‘ticket,’” said he persuasively.
“Oh, is it?” said I, with a gleam of hope. “Perhaps I could remember that. Billet,” I repeated reflectively.
“Billet,” he amended; “not Billit.”
“Bill-yet—Bill-yet,” I repeated.
“And ‘to Elberthal’ may be said in one word, ‘Elberthal.’ ‘Ein Billet—Elberthal—erster Classe.’”
“Ein Bill-yet,” I repeated, automatically, for my thoughts were dwelling more upon the charming quandary in which I found myself than upon his half-good-natured half-mocking instructions: “Ein Bill-yet, firste—erste—it is of no use. I can’t say it. But”—here a brilliant idea struck me—“if you could write it out for me on a paper, and then I could give it to the man: he would surely know what it meant.”
“A very interesting idea, but a vivâ voce interview is so much better.”