"You ought to have spoken to one of the John Darms," laughed Whistlebinkie.
"I did," said the Unwiseman. "I stopped one outside the door and asked him, 'is your grandfather still alive?' The book says the answer to that is 'yes, and my grandmother also,' whereupon I should ask, 'how many grandchildren has your grandfather?' But I didn't get beyond the first question. Instead of telling me that his grandfather was living, and his grandmother also, he said something about Ally Voozon, a person of whom I never heard and who is not mentioned in the book at all. I wish I was back somewhere where they speak a language somebody can understand."
"Have you had your breakfast?" asked Mollie.
A deep frown came upon the face of the Unwiseman.
"No—" he answered shortly. "I—er—I went to get some but they tried to cheat me," he added. "There was a sign in a window announcing French Tabble d'hotes. I thought it was some new kind of a breakfast food like cracked wheat, or oat-meal flakes, so I stopped in and asked for a small box of it, and they tried to make me believe it was a meal of four or five courses, with soup and fish and a lot of other things thrown in, that had to be eaten on the premises. I wished for once that I knew some French conversation that wasn't polite to tell 'em what I thought of 'em. I can imagine a lot of queer things, but when everybody tells me that oats are soup and fish and olives and ice-cream and several other things to boot, even in French, why I just don't believe it, that's all. What's more I can prove that oats are oats over here because I saw a cab-horse eating some. I may not know beans but I know oats, and I told 'em so. Then the garkon—I know why some people call these French waiters gason now, they talk so much—the garkon said I could order a la carte, and I told him I guessed I could if I wanted to, but until I was reduced to a point where I had to eat out of a wagon I wouldn't ask his permission."
"Good-for-you!" whistled Whistlebinkie, clapping the Unwiseman on the back.
"When a man wants five cents worth of oats it's a regular swindle to try to ram forty cents worth of dinner down his throat, especially at breakfast time, and I for one just won't have it," said the Unwiseman. "By the way, I wouldn't eat any fish over here if I were you, Mollie," he went on.
"Why not?" asked the little girl. "Isn't it fresh?"
"It isn't that," said the Unwiseman. "It's because over here it's poison."
"No!" cried Mollie.