“All I have,” said the Colonel, “is a volume of Ibsen’s plays.”
“Give me that,” said the Doctor, “and I’ll do my best.”
“It’s only a translation.”
“Never mind. I’ll pick up something out of it that may be useful. I have two hours before me. Do you mind lending it to me?”
Dr. Whitty went home with a copy of a translation of “Rosmersholm,” “Ghosts,” and “An Enemy of Society.”
At six o’clock the whole party of linguists assembled in the private sitting-room of the master of the workhouse. Dr. Whitty gave them a short address of an encouraging kind, pointing out that, in performing an act of charity they were making the best possible use of the education they had received. He then politely asked Mrs. Jackson if she would like to visit the foreigner first. She did not seem anxious to push herself forward. Her German, she confessed, was weak; and she hoped that if she was reserved until the last he might possibly recognise one of the other languages before her turn came. Everybody else, it turned out, felt very much as Mrs. Jackson did. In the end Dr. Whitty decided the order of precedence by drawing lots. The colonel, accepting loyally the decision of destiny, went first and returned with the news that the sailor showed no signs of being able to understand Russian. Lizzie Glynn went next, and was no more fortunate with her French.
“I’m not sure,” she said, “did I speak it right. But, right or wrong, he didn’t know a word I said to him.”
Mr. Jackson arranged his notes carefully and was conducted by the doctor to the ward. He, too, returned without having made himself intelligible.
“I knew I should be no use,” he said. “I expect modern Greek is quite different from the language I know.”