Mollie and the Unwiseman Abroad Part 17

"Why he's dead," said Mollie.

"What?" cried the Unwiseman. "Umpire Napoleon dead? Why--when did that happen? I didn't see anything about it in the newspapers."

"He died a long time ago," answered Mollie. "Before I was born, I guess."

"Well I never!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the Unwiseman, his face clouding over. "That book I read on the History of France didn't say anything about his being dead--that is, not as far as I got in it. Last time I heard of him he was starting out for Russia to give the Czar a licking. I supposed he thought it was a good time to do it after the j.a.ps had started the ball a-rolling. Are you sure about that?"

"Pretty sure," said Mollie. "I don't know very much about French history, but I'm almost certain he's dead."

"I'm going down stairs to ask at the office," said the Unwiseman.

"They'll probably know all about it."

So the little old gentleman pattered down the hall to the elevator and went to the office to inquire as to the fate of the Emperor Napoleon. In five minutes he was back again.

"Say, Mollie," he whispered through the key-hole. "I wish you'd ask your father about the Umpire. I can't seem to find out anything about him."

"Don't they know at the office?" asked Mollie.

"Oh I guess they know all right," said the Unwiseman, "but there's a hitch somewhere in my getting the information. Far as I can find out these people over here don't understand their own language. I asked 'em in French, like this: 'Mounseer le Umpire, est il mort?' And they told me he was _no_ more. Now whether _no_ more means that he is not mort, or _is_ mort, depends on what language the man who told me was speaking. If he was speaking French he's not dead. If he was speaking English he _is_ dead, and there you are. It's awfully mixed up."

"I-guess-seez-ded-orright," whistled Whistlebinkie. "He was dead last time I heard of him, and I guess when they're dead once there dead for good."

"Well you never can tell," said the Unwiseman. "He was a very great man, the Umpire Napoleon was, and they might have only thought he was dead while he was playing foxy to see what the newspapers would say about him."

So Mollie asked her father and to the intense regret of everybody it turned out that the great Emperor had been dead for a long time.

"It's a very great disappointment to me," sighed the Unwiseman, when Mollie conveyed the sad news to him. "The minute I knew we were coming to France I began to read up about the country, and Napoleon Bonaparte was one of the things I came all the way over to see. Are the Boys de Bologna dead too?"

"I never heard of them," said Mollie.

"I feel particularly upset about the Umpire," continued the Unwiseman, "because I sat up almost all last night getting up some polite conversation to be held with him this morning. I found just the thing for it in my book."

"Howdit-go?" whistled Whistlebinkie.

"Like this," said the Unwiseman. "I was going to begin with:

"'Shall you buy a horse?'

"And the Umpire was to say:

"'I should like to buy a horse from you.'

"And then we were to continue with:

"'I have no horse but I will sell you my dog.'

'You are wrong; dogs are such faithful creatures.'

'But my wife prefers cats----'"

"Pooh!" cried Whistlebinkie. "You haven't got any wife."

"Well, what of it?" retorted the Unwiseman. "The Umpire wouldn't know that, and besides she _would_ prefer cats if I had one. You should not interrupt conversation when other people are talking, Whistlebinkie, especially when it's polite conversation."

"Orright-I-pol-gize," whistled Whistlebinkie. "Go on with the rest of it."

"I was then going to say:" continued the Unwiseman,

"'Will you go out this afternoon?'

'I should like to go out this afternoon.'

'Should you remain here if your mother were here?'

'Yes I should remain here even if my aunt were here.'

'Had you remained here I should not have gone out.'

'I shall have finished when you come.'

'As soon as you have received your money come to see me.'

'I do not know yet whether we shall leave tomorrow.'

'I should have been afraid had you not been with me.'

'So long.'

'To the river.'"

"To the river?" asked Whistlebinkie. "What does that mean?"

"It is French for, 'I hope we shall meet again.' Au river is the polite way of saying, 'good-bye for a little while.' And to think that after having sat up until five o'clock this morning learning all that by heart I should find that the man I was going to say it to has been dead for--how many years, Mollie?"

"Oh nearly a hundred years," said the little girl.

"No wonder it wasn't in the papers before I left home," said the Unwiseman. "Oh well, never mind----."

"Perhaps you can swing that talk around so as to fit some French Robert," suggested Whistlebinkie.

"The Police are not Roberts over here," said the Unwiseman. "In France they are Johns--John Darms is what they call the pleece in this country, and I never should think of addressing a conversation designed for an Umpire to the plebean ear of a mere John."

"Well I think it was pretty poor conversation," said Whistlebinkie. "And I guess it's lucky for you the Umpire is dead. All that stuff didn't mean anything."

"It doesn't seem to mean much in English," said the Unwiseman, "but it must mean something in French, because if it didn't the man who wrote French in Five Lessons wouldn't have considered it important enough to print. Just because you don't like a thing, or don't happen to understand it, isn't any reason for believing that the Umpire would not find it extremely interesting. I shan't waste it on a John anyhow."

An hour or two later when Mollie had breakfasted the Unwiseman presented himself again.

"I'm very much afraid I'm not going to like this place any better than I did London," he said. "The English people, even if they do drop their aitches all over everywhere, understand their own language, which is more than these Frenchmen do. I have tried my French on half a dozen of them and there wasn't one of 'em that looked as if he knew what I was talking about."

"What did you say to them?" asked Mollie.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "HAVE YOU SEEN THE ORMOLU CLOCK OF YOUR SISTER'S MUSIC TEACHER?"]

"Well I went up to a cabman and remarked, just as the book put it, 'how is the sister of your mother's uncle,' and he acted as if I'd hit him with a brick," said the Unwiseman. "Then I stopped a bright looking boy out on the rue and said to him, 'have you seen the ormolu clock of your sister's music teacher,' to which he should have replied, 'no I have not seen the ormolu clock of my sister's music teacher, but the candle-stick of the wife of the butcher of my cousin's niece is on the mantel-piece,'

but all he did was to stick out his tongue at me and laugh."

"You ought to have spoken to one of the John Darms," laughed Whistlebinkie.

"I did," said the Unwiseman. "I stopped one outside the door and asked him, 'is your grandfather still alive?' The book says the answer to that is 'yes, and my grandmother also,' whereupon I should ask, 'how many grandchildren has your grandfather?' But I didn't get beyond the first question. Instead of telling me that his grandfather was living, and his grandmother also, he said something about Ally Voozon, a person of whom I never heard and who is not mentioned in the book at all. I wish I was back somewhere where they speak a language somebody can understand."