“What’ll I do at all?”
“I’ll tell you what it is,” said the doctor. “I’ll go round the town and I’ll collect all the people in it that can speak any language besides English. I’ll bring them up here and let them try him one by one. It’ll be a queer thing if we can’t find somebody that will be able to make him understand a simple question.”
Dr. Whitty called first at the Imperial Hotel, and had an interview with Lizzie Glynn.
“Lizzie,” he said, “you’ve had a good education at one of the most expensive convents in Ireland. Isn’t that a fact?”
“It is,” she said. “And I took a prize one time for playing the piano.”
“It’s not piano-playing that I expect from you now,” said the doctor, “but languages. You speak French, of course?”
“I learned it,” said Lizzie, “but I wouldn’t say I could talk it very fast.”
“Never mind how slow you go,” said the doctor, “so long as you get it out in the end. Are you good at German?”
“I didn’t learn German.”