"Do it, Rob," urged Tubby. "Merritt and I will stand by to catch him if he starts to faint."
"Oh! I hope my French isn't quite that bad," exclaimed Rob. "I've been polishing it up considerable, you know, while on the steamer, and after we landed in Belgium; and, with what I know, and by pointing and shrugging my shoulders, I generally manage to make people understand. Of course, I don't know how it would be with a clodhopper who didn't happen to be as intelligent as I'd want. But here's a chance, and I'm going to make the attempt."
"It won't kill, even if it doesn't cure," said Merritt; "and, Rob, if you can get him to understand what you're saying, be sure and ask if that chemical factory, where we understood Steven had been given his responsible berth, has shut down, or if it is still in operation."
"I'll do that, Merritt," the other promised.
Accordingly, when the peasant, smoking his big pipe, came along in his wooden shoes, Rob stopped him. He wanted to impress the fellow favorably, so as to increase the prospect for a favorable answer; and so Rob made sure to have one of his famous smiles on his bright face when he began to air his French.
The other boys stood there watching the "circus," as Tubby called it. They saw, however, that Rob, many times at a loss for words in order to express his meaning, must have managed to make the peasant understand him.
Again and again each of them pointed toward the town so near at hand. Possibly Rob may have been explaining just who he and his chums were, and also how they had come all the way from Antwerp with the one hope of finding a certain person in this little suburb.
"He's picking up some kind of news, seems like," Merritt told Tubby, as the dialogue progressed under so many difficulties, expressive movements of the shoulders, and waving hands taking the place of words that failed.
"What makes you think so?" demanded the fat scout.
"Look at Rob's face, and you can tell that he's feeling more or less satisfied with the way things are going on," replied Merritt.