And the old man rattled off the following:
"Avvy-voo kelker chose ah me dire? Avvy-voo bien dormy la nooit dernyere? Savvy-voo kieskersayker cetum la avec le nez rouge? Kervooly-voo-too-der-sweet-silver-plate-o-see-le-mem. Donny-moi des boogies et des alloomettes avec burr et sooker en tasse. La Voila. Kerpensy-voo de cette comedie mon cher mounseer de Whistlebinkie?"
"Mercy!" cried Whistlebinkie. "What a language! I don't believe I ever could learn to speak it."
"You learn to speak it, Whistlebinkie?" laughed the old gentleman. "You? Well I guess not. I don't believe you could even learn to squeak it."
With which observation the Unwiseman hopped back into his carpet-bag, for the conductor of the train was seen coming up the platform of the railway station, and the old gentleman as usual was travelling without a ticket.
"I'd rather be caught by an English conductor if I'm going to be caught at all," he remarked after the train had started and he was safe. "For I find in looking it over that all my talk in French is polite conversation, and I don't think there'd be much chance for that in a row with a conductor over a missing railway ticket."