"Same here," said Tom Platt. "Hi! Backez vous—backez vous! Standez awayez, you butt-ended mucho-bono! Where you from—St. Malo, eh?"
"Ah, ha! Mucho bono! Oui! oui! Clos Poulet—St. Malo! St. Pierre et Miquelon," cried the other crowd, waving woollen caps and laughing. Then all together, "Bord! Bord!"
"Bring up the board, Danny. Beats me how them Frenchmen fetch anywheres, exceptin' America's fairish broadly. Forty-six forty-nine's good enough fer them; an' I guess it's abaout right, too."
Dan chalked the figures on the board, and they hung it in the main-rigging to a chorus of mercis from the bark.
"Seems kinder uneighbourly to let 'em swedge off like this," Salters suggested, feeling in his pockets.
"Hev ye learned French then sence last trip?" said Disko. "I don't want no more stone-ballast hove at us 'long o' your callin' Miquelon boats 'footy cochins,' same's you did off Le Have."
"Harmon Rush he said that was the way to rise 'em. Plain United States is good enough fer me. We're all dretful short on terbakker. Young feller, don't you speak French?"
"Oh, yes," said Harvey valiantly; and he bawled: "Hi! Say! Arretez vous! Attendez! Nous sommes venant pour tabac."
"Ah, tabac, tabac!" they cried, and laughed again.
"That hit 'em. Let's heave a dory over, anyway," said Tom Platt. "I don't exactly hold no certificates on French, but I know another lingo that goes, I guess. Come on, Harve, an' interpret."