“Hard work, Captain, to leave such quarters. By Jove! I could have stayed for ever.”
“Come, Clayley—you are in love.”
“Yes; they who live in glass houses—. Oh! if I could only speak the lingo as you do!”
I could not help smiling, for I had overheard him through the trees making the most he could of his partner’s broken English. I was curious to know how he had sped, and whether he had been as ‘quick upon the trigger’ as myself. My curiosity was soon relieved.
“I tell you, Captain,” he continued, “if I could only have talked it, I would have put the question on the spot. I did try to get a ‘yes’ or a ‘no’ out of her; but she either couldn’t or wouldn’t understand me. It was all bad luck.”
“Could you not make her understand you? Surely she knows English enough for that?”
“I thought so too; but when I spoke about love she only laughed and slapped me on the face with her fan. Oh, no; the thing must be done in Spanish, that’s plain; and you see I am going to set about it in earnest. She loaned me these.”
Saying this, he pulled out of the crown of his foraging-cap a couple of small volumes, which I recognised as a Spanish grammar and dictionary. I could not resist laughing aloud.
“Comrade, you will find the best dictionary to be the lady herself.”
“That’s true; but how the deuce are we to get back again? A mule-hunt don’t happen every day.”