But
he was handicapped into a state of dumbness by the fact that he
needed both arms to balance a tray of wine and sandwiches on his
head. Merely using his voice in that company would not have
counted. He stood it as long as he could, which was not very long,
let me tell you. Then he slammed his tray down on the platform
and, with one quick movement, jerked his coat sleeves back to his
elbows, and inside thirty seconds he had the floor in both hands,
as it were. He conversed mainly with the Australian crawl stroke,
but once in a while switched to the Spencerian free-arm movement
and occasionally introduced the Chautauqua salute with telling
effect.
On the Continent guides, as a class, excel in the gift of tongues
- guides and hotel concierges. The concierge at our hotel in
Berlin was a big, upstanding chap, half Russian and half Swiss,
and therefore qualified by his breeding to speak many languages;
for the Russians are born with split tongues and can give cards
and spades to any talking crow that ever lived; while the Swiss
lag but little behind them in linguistic aptitude. It seemed such
a pity that this man was not alive when the hands knocked off work
on the Tower of Babel; he could have put the job through without
extending himself. No matter what the nationality of a guest might
be - and the guests were of many nationalities - he could talk with
that guest in his own language or in any other language the guest
might fancy. I myself was sorely tempted to try him on Coptic
and early Aztec; but I held off. My Coptic is not what it once
was; and, partly through disuse and partly through carelessness,
I have allowed my command of early Aztec to fall off pretty badly
these last few months.
All linguistic freakishness is not confined to the Continent. The
English, who are popularly supposed to use the same language we
ourselves use, sometimes speak with a mighty strange tongue. A
great many of them do not speak English; they speak British, a
very different thing. An Englishwoman of breeding has a wonderful
speaking voice; as pure as a Boston woman's and more liquid; as
soft as a Southern woman's and with more attention paid to the R's.
But the Cockney type - Wowie! During a carriage ride in Florence
with a mixed company of tourists I chanced to say something of a
complimentary nature about something English, and a little
London-bred woman spoke up and said: "Thenks! It's vurry naice of
you to sezzo, 'm sure." Some of them talk like that - honestly they
do!
Though Americo-English may not be an especially musical speech,
it certainly does lend itself most admirably to slang purposes.
Here again the Britishers show their inability to utilize the
vehicle to the full of its possibilities.
