"That ain't exactly my idee of the Gawden o' Paradise, Miss," he said, when Yvonne told him what the carvings symbolized. "You wouldn't expect Eve to be chewin' a crabapple—now, would yer, Miss?"
"But what makes you think Eve is eating a crabapple?" she cried.
"Why, Miss, look at 'er fice!" he said. "Tork abart lemons! One bite has given 'er a pine!"
In the hotel at Quimperlé, too, he created a good deal of merriment on discovering the English name of a dish which looked and tasted like chicken but figured in the menu as grenouilles à la financière.
"W'at!" he cried, some natural embarrassment because of his surroundings yielding to horrified surprise. "Me eat a frog? Well, live an' learn! But I tell you strite, I'd as soon 'ave eaten a snike!"
"What is a 'snike'?" inquired Raymond.
"It's a squirmin' reptyle w'at eats frogs," said Jackson instantly, and, as the secretary had partaken freely of that particular course, the retort did not lack point.
But Raymond laughed with the others. He would have guffawed cheerfully if someone had bumped into his injured arm by way of a joke.
Bennett, being a lawyer, was not dull of perception. He claimed the front seat for the return journey; so Tollemache sat between Yvonne and her mother.