At mealtime, the verdict having been duly pronounced on each successive dish, Victorine would stand by while we ate, and unburden herself confidentially. 'Mon mari' (Jean Baptiste, a co-refugee who had searched all London for a place as valet de chambre) was lightly touched upon. Belgium was described in glowing terms, a land of wonders we had not dreamt of.
"Miss will not believe me, but when first we arrive in England all the world cries, 'Oh! regard then the little sheep!' For Mademoiselle must know that in Belgium the sheep are high and big as that" (Victorine sketches in the air the dimensions of a good-sized donkey). "Monsieur mocks himself of me? Monsieur should visit my pays where dwell the sheep of a bigness and a fatness to rejoice the heart, and whose wool is of a softness incredible; Monsieur would not then smile thus in his beard." Victorine assumes an attitude of virtuous indignation, disturbed by the ringing of the telephone bell.
"I save myself," she murmurs.
Through the half-open door we hear as usual only scraps of dialogue, all on one side, and very unsatisfying.
"Alloa! J'écoute! Madame, je ne parle que le français—hein?" Long pause. "Alloa! Alloa!" Victorine rattles the instrument impatiently. "Ah! ça y est! Si Madame désire que j'appelle Miss——? Quel nom? Hein? Meesus Tsch—arch—kott. Mon Dieu——"
Victorine lays down the receiver and comes back flushed into the room.
"C'est Meesus Arch-tsch-kott qui demande Miss au téléphone. She desire to know if Miss will take the dinner with her. Are they difficult these English names!"
But English names are not Victorine's sole difficulty. She wrestles (mentally) from time to time with the butcher and the baker and the milkman. The milkman, it seems, is "un peu fou." Victorine greets him in the mornings in voluble French, and he in return bows elaborately and pretends to drop the milk. We have watched the process from an upper window. Victorine takes a step backward, her hand flies to her heart, and, as she afterwards informs us, "her blood gives but a turn" at this exhibition of British wit. We have been wondering whether it would be judicious to teach her to say, "Get along with yer."
She is very prolific in "ideas," and seems to be chiefly inspired when engaged in the uncongenial pastime of cleaning the grate.
"Know you, Miss, that I have an idea, me?"