"I guess you mean appreciate," suggested Mollie.
"May be I do," returned the Unwiseman. "I mean I like 'em better. American oats are better than tabble d'hotes. American beef is better than French buff. American butter is better than foreign burr, and while their oofs are pretty good, when I eat eggs I want eggs, and not something else with a hard-boiled accent on it that twists my tongue out of shape. And when people speak a language I like 'em to have one they can understand when it's spoken to them like good old Yankamerican."
"Hoorray for-Ramerrica!" cried Whistlebinkie.
"Ditto hic, as Julius Cæsar used to say," roared the Unwiseman.
And the Unwiseman took what was left of his bottleful of their native land out of his pocket and the three little travellers cheered it until the room fairly echoed with the noise. That night when they had gathered together again, the Unwiseman looked very tired.
"Well, Mollie," he said, "I've seen it all. That guide down stairs showed me everything in the place and I'm going to retire to my carpet-bag again until you're ready to start for Kayzoozalum——"
"Swizz-izzer-land," whistled Whistlebinkie.
"Switzerland," said Mollie.
"Well wherever it is we're going Alp hunting," said the Unwiseman. "I'm too tired to say a word like that to-night. My tongue is all out of shape anyhow trying to talk French and I'm not going to speak it any more. It's not the sort of language I admire—just full o' nonsense. When people call pudding 'poo-dang' and a bird a 'wazzoh' I'm through with it. I've seen 8374 miles of pictures; some more busted statuary; one cathedral—I thought a cathedral was some kind of an animal with a hairy head and a hump on its back, but it's nothing but a big overgrown church—; Napoleon's tomb—he is dead after all and France is a Republic, as if we didn't have a big enough Republic home without coming over here to see another—; one River Seine, which ain't much bigger than the Erie Canal, and not a trout or a snapping turtle in it from beginning to end; the Boys de Bologna, which is only a Park, with no boys or sausages anywhere about it; the Champs Eliza; an obelisk; and about sixteen palaces without a King or an Umpire in the whole lot; and I've paid three dollars for it, and I'm satisfied. I'd be better satisfied if I'd paid a dollar and a half, but you can't travel for nothing, and I regard the extra dollar and fifty cents as well spent since I've learned what to do next time."