"Garçon—sel," added Lynch, acting upon this excellent advice.
The waiter brought the sel, and nobody was sold this time.
"I think I shall pick up the French language in time," added Lynch, encouraged by his success.
"Perhaps you will, but the Hôtel Royal will have crumbled to dust before that happy event occurs."
There was any quantity of blunders made at the table, and some of the students had nearly choked themselves to death with laughing at them, and at the blank looks of the waiters when spoken to in a tongue which Mr. Fluxion declared sounded more like Low Dutch than decent French. Mr. Molenschot laughed too, and intimated that "my hotel" had never been so lively before.
"What now, Captain Kendall?" said Mr. Fluxion, when the supper and the blunders had ended.
"My officers and crew wish to take a little walk," replied Paul.
"What! to-night?. It is after ten o'clock."
"They wish to see how 'Belgium's capital' looks in the evening."
"Of course you can do as you think best; but I advise you to be cautious with them. They may get into trouble in a strange city, or get lost. If some of them can't speak French any better than they did at supper, they will have to go to the watch-house, because they can't ask the way back."