"Come along," he said. "De ladies ees ready by dees time. Ve goes. Den I dells you some dings you nefer hear."
He seemed to know all about the Columbia, for he led Jack straight to the stateroom door, through all the crowds of passengers.
"I might not have found it in less than an hour," said Jack to himself. "They're waiting for us. I can't talk with them much."
But he found out that Mrs. Guilderaufenberg spoke English with but little accent, Miss Hildebrand only knocked over a letter here and there, and the Polish lady's fluent English astonished him so much that he complimented her upon it.
"Dot ees so," remarked Mr. Guilderaufenberg. "She talks dem all so vell dey say she vas born dere. Dell you vat, my poy, ven you talks Bolish or Russian, den you vas exercise your tongue so you shpeaks all de oder lankwitches easy."
The ladies were in good humor, and disposed to laugh at anything, especially after they reached the supper-room; and Mrs. Guilderaufenberg at once took a strong interest in Jack because he had never been anywhere.
For convenience, perhaps, the ladies frequently spoke to one another in German, but Jack, without understanding a word of it, listened earnestly to what they were saying.
They often, however, talked in English, and to him, and he learned that they had been making a summer-vacation trip through Canada, and were now on their way home. It was evident that Mr. Guilderaufenberg was a man who did not lack money, and that none of the others were poor. Besides hearing them, Jack was busy in looking around the long, glittering supper-room of the Columbia, noticing how many different kinds of people there were in it. They seemed to be of all nations, ages, colors, and kinds, and Jack would not have missed the sight for anything.
"I'm beginning to see the world," he said to himself, and then he had to reply to Mrs. Guilderaufenberg for about the twentieth time:
"Oh, not at all. You're welcome to the stateroom. I'd rather sit up and look at the river than go to bed."