Geo. Never heard anything like it; tongue journaled on ball-bearings! I wonder what she said; seemed to be swearing, mainly.
W. (After mumbling Meisterschaft awhile.) Look here, George, this is awful—come to think—this project: we can’t talk this frantic language.
Geo. I know it, Will, and it is awful; but I can’t live without seeing Margaret—I’ve endured it as long as I can. I should die if I tried to hold out longer—and even German is preferable to death.
W. (Hesitatingly.) Well, I don’t know; it’s a matter of opinion.
Geo. (Irritably.) It isn’t a matter of opinion either. German is preferable to death.
W. (Reflectively.) Well, I don’t know—the problem is so sudden—but I think you may be right: some kinds of death. It is more than likely that a slow, lingering—well, now, there in Canada in the early times a couple of centuries ago, the Indians would take a missionary and skin him, and get some hot ashes and boiling water and one thing and another, and by and by, that missionary—well, yes, I can see that, by and by, talking German could be a pleasant change for him.
Geo. Why, of course. Das versteht sich; but you have to always think a thing out, or you’re not satisfied. But let’s not go to bothering about thinking out this present business; we’re here, we’re in for it; you are as moribund to see Annie as I am to see Margaret; you know the terms: we’ve got to speak German. Now stop your mooning and get at your Meisterschaft; we’ve got nothing else in the world.
W. Do you think that’ll see us through?
Geo. Why it’s got to. Suppose we wandered out of it and took a chance at the language on our own responsibility, where the nation would we be? Up a stump, that’s where. Our only safety is in sticking like wax to the text.
W. But what can we talk about?