“Efery body laff again and say yes. So I find Beel here to go to get me a gurl’s dress, and I put him on. But Jo not so beeg den as now, and dat dress go on pooty goot, eh, Beel?”
Thus appealed to Bill agreed, but the hardly controlled laughter of the audience now pealed forth and the narrator could not be heard for a few moments. Then he resumed his tale.
“All right! Beel and Bob find me a seat in a Belgium peasant cart what drivin’ back home, and I sit like a nice beeg gurl on a seat and call her mudder. I find goot luck dat time, cause no Hun stop me and no one take the beeg dinner what Capataine pack for my family.
“Mebbe my mudder not cry tears for joy when I come in all dressed oop like my seester, and my seester she laff and say: ‘Now I got a fine new dress to wear.’
“Veil, I tell my mudder I got’ta go join Beel’s friend’s in dis fight. I find I beeg enuff to take prisoner by my enemy, so I beeg enuff to fight, too! My mudder cry, and my seester say. ‘Oh, vere shall we find help?’ En I say: ‘Leaf this old house ’cause soon it make fire for my enemy to cook peegs, and you run so fast what you can to my onkel’s in Bruges.’ So dey run an’ I coom back to fight wid Beel. And so dat’s all.”
As he concluded his story, Johann instantly stooped and took the abandoned tray. He quickly transferred its contents to the table and turned to hurry back to the kitchen without waiting for applause from his interested audience. At the same moment the Oriental chef came down the deck and brandished a long wooden spoon. Johann saw and grinned. He half turned to Mr. Dalken and said in a most laughable way: “My enemy cooms!”
Then he scuttled away down the other side of the craft, and the chef stood and shook an angry fist in his direction. But the Oriental heard the loud laughter from those seated at table, and saw their pleased faces and he surmised that Johann must have been the cause of it. Hence he hurried back to his culinary heaven to question the servant and learn what had so amused the guests.
“Jo hasn’t told half the story,” declared Bob, as the merry laughter subsided.
“No, he skipped anything that went to tell you what a loyal man he was, and how he fought for country as well as for us, his friends.” Bill seemed to go back and mentally review the incidents.
“Then it is up to you to tell us, Bill,” said Jack.