The Motor Boys Bound for Home; or, Ned, Bob and Jerry on the Wrecked Troopship

by Clarence Young

  CHAPTER IV

  OFF AGAIN

  Jerry Hopkins was the first of the three chums to regain his composureand take the situation in hand. Quietly he motioned to Ned to fallback, and, at the same time, nodded to Bob not to approach, as thestout youth seemed about to do. The two soldiers had had enoughexperience with Jerry’s method in an emergency to be willing to let himmanage matters now.

  “What do you mean? What do you mean?” spluttered the little man, who,from the back, had so closely resembled Professor Snodgrass. “How dareyou insult me?”

  “There seems to be some mistake,” said Jerry, trying to keep his voiceunder control, for, truth to tell, he was as indignant as his chumswere at the unwarranted assumption on the part of the stranger.

  “Mistake? I should say there had been!” was the exclamation from thelittle man. “You made a mistake in thinking I had anything to do withthat--that charlatan! That pretender! That scientific faker, who callshimself ‘Professor’ Snodgrass. A mistake indeed!”

  “Wait a minute! Wait a minute!” broke in Ned, unable longer to hear hisfriend thus abused. “The mistake will be on the other foot in a minuteif you keep on that way!” he said indignantly.

  The little man seemed about to rise from the table to attack Ned, butJerry gently thrust back his impetuous chum.

  “Let me handle him,” he whispered to Ned.

  “Is he crazy?” asked Bob.

  “It begins to look that way,” answered Jerry, as the little man resumedhis seat at his table, though he did not continue his meal.

  “We wish to apologize for having mistaken you for a friend of ours,”said Jerry suavely. “Seeing you from the back we took you to beProfessor Snodgrass, and----”

  “Is _he_ a friend of yours?” asked the little man fiercely.

  “He certainly is!” exclaimed Bob truculently.

  “Well, all I have to say is that I am sorry for you,” said the littleman. “You had no right to assume that I was he, and your effrontery inpublicly addressing me as such needs to be apologized for.”

  “Which we are doing,” said Jerry stiffly. “And I might add,” he wenton, “that if you continue in your present strain there will besomething else to apologize for, and not on our part, either!” Heseemed quite a different Jerry now.

  “We have made proper reparation for having mistaken you for our friend,Professor Snodgrass,” he continued, “and that, to a _gentleman_, shouldbe sufficient. I think that is all, sir!”

  Jerry turned stiffly and marched back to his own table, followed byNed and Bob, who had left their seats to join him. For a few secondsthe little bald-headed man did not seem to know what to do. He saidsomething about its being “all right now,” but mingled with this weregrunts and mutterings about “insolent puppies,” which words, however,Jerry and his chums thought best to ignore.

  “Say, what was eating him, anyhow?” asked Bob, when they had resumedtheir seats for their dessert which the pretty Marie was then bringingto them.

  “I guess you mean what had he been eating,” said Ned. “Red pepperand _chili con carne_ I imagine, with a dish of tabasco sauce and_frijoles_ on the side.”

  “Reminds me of our Mexico trip,” interposed Bob. “What was the name ofthat Spanish fellow who was always making so much trouble?”

  “You mean Vasco Bilette,” suggested Jerry.

  “That’s it! This fellow, who really looks a lot like our dear, oldprofessor, certainly is touchy.”

  “He certainly is,” agreed Jerry. “Say, Bob,” he went on, “you claim youcan _parlez-vous_ better than the rest of us. Suppose you ask Marie ifshe knows this duck.”

  “Sure!” assented the stout lad. “Say, _chere_ Marie,” he went on as thepretty little waitress came up to their table, “_comprehendez-vous_him?” and he pointed to the man who was the cause of the Motor Boys’discomfiture. For it had been disquieting, to say the least, to havethe eyes of all in the restaurant turned on them during the fracas, asNed termed it.

  “_Comprehendez-vous_ him?” asked Bob of Marie. “You know. _La petitehommes de la table d’hote_,” and to make sure that his “French” wouldbe understood he pointed to the little man.

  “Say, what’s that you’re getting off?” demanded Jerry.

  “I’m asking her if she’s wise to the guy who’s eating in thisrestaurant,” translated Bob. “_Comprehendez_--that means ‘do you know.’_La petite_--that means ‘little’ and _hommes_ means ‘man.’”

  “He’s right there,” declared Ned earnestly, while Marie looked amusedlyat “_les trois mousquetaires_.”

  “How do you know?” snapped Jerry.

  “Why, isn’t it painted all over the cars we’ve been riding in,‘chevaux 8--hommes 40’? That is eight horses or forty men. Sure_hommes_ mean men, or man.”

  “Watch Bob swell up,” commented Jerry.

  “Well, you told me to spout French, and I’m doing it,” said the ladwith the perpetual appetite. “Now give her a chance to answer. I’ll askher again. _Chere Marie! Comprehendez-vous la petite hommes de la tabled’hote?_”

  The pretty waitress placed on the table the dishes she had brought upto serve, turned for a look over her shoulder at the man Bob referredto, and then looked back, with a smile, at the stout lad and his chums.

  “_Oui_,” she answered, guessing shrewdly at Bob’s meaning and shruggingher shoulders expressively.

  “Oh, ho! So she does know him!” exclaimed Ned, for in spite of the factthat they let Bob assert his knowledge of French, they could not helpacquiring some of the words, and that “_oui_” meant “yes” had been oneof their first acquisitions.

  “Who is he?” asked Jerry.

  “She can’t understand that,” declared Bob. “Wait, I’ll translateit to her.” Then, laboriously he said: “_Le nom des hommes?Comprehendez-vous?_”

  “What’s that?” Ned wanted to know.

  “I’m asking her if she knows his name,” replied Bob.

  They looked anxiously at Marie. Again she turned and glanced at thelittle man who had waxed so indignant at being taken for ProfessorSnodgrass.

  “_Cochon!_” exclaimed Marie, and she seemed to snap out the word as asecond lieutenant issues his commands to the awkward squad.

  “What did she say?” chorused Ned and Jerry.

  Bob was nonplussed. He scratched his head and then repeated the word toMarie.

  “_Cochon?_” he asked.

  “_Cochon! Cochon!_” was the swift answer. “_Oui! Cochon des cochons!_”

  “Um!” murmured Bob.

  There was a moment’s silence, during which Marie moved off to serveanother table.

  “Well, what is he, a German spy?” asked Ned. “If he is, he has hisnerve with him--showing up here after the armistice.”

  “Yes, tell us what she said,” begged Jerry.

  “Well,” returned Bob slowly, “you know the French language is veryqueer. It isn’t like any other language.”

  “Oh, we know that all right!” exclaimed Ned. “You needn’t tell us that.Even though you may know a lot more about it than we do, it hasn’ttaken us six months to appreciate the fact that it’s a mighty elusiveway of conversing. But what I want to know, and what Jerry wants toknow, is: What did Marie say that pepper-hash guy was?”

  “Well,” confessed Bob, “that’s just it. If the French language didn’thave so many words in it that sound a lot alike, but mean a lot ofdifferent things, I could be sure. She called him a _cochon_.”

  “A _cochon_ of a _cochon_,” added Jerry.

  “Yes, that’s what she did,” said Bob.

  “Well, but what is a cochon?” asked Ned.

  “It’s either a pig or a coachman,” said Bob, desperately. “That’sthe trouble. I’m not sure which. I forget whether _cocher_ is pig orwhether it’s coachman, and I don’t know whether _cochon_ is coachman orpig. I know it’s one or the other, but just now I sort of forget.”

  “A heap of good your French does us!” laughed Jerry. “If she said hewas a
coachman it might mean he was a respectable, though humble,member of society. If, on the other hand, she called him a pig, itmight mean he had something to do with starting this war. Now which isit?”

  Bob scratched his head again. Plainly, he was “stumped.”

  “I’ll ask her again when she comes back,” he said. “I wish I had myFrench book here. I sort of think that _cochon_ means pig, and, in thatcase----”

  “Well, he certainly acted like a pig, so we’ll let it go at that,”declared Jerry. “The idea of getting on his ear just because wehappened to mistake him for Professor Snodgrass!”

  “And he did look a lot like him from the back,” declared Ned.

  “Sure,” assented Bob. “I wonder where the dear old chap is, anyhow? Iwish he were going back with us.”

  “Not much chance of that,” said Jerry. “He said he’d like to, and hereally started back, but he received word to take up some other line ofscientific investigation before he left to go back to Boxwood Hall, andyou can wager your last cartridge that he’ll do it. But this man seemsto have some sort of grudge against him, taking us up the way he did.”

  “That’s right,” agreed Ned. “Say, Bob, you’ll have to tackle yourfriend Marie again. See if you can’t find out more about this duck.”

  “I will,” promised Bob. “I’ll speak to her as soon as she comes back.It might be, you know, that this fellow is some relation to the Germansthe professor captured.”

  “Not much chance of that,” declared Jerry. “This _cocher_ or _cochon_doesn’t seem a bit like a Hun.”

  “You never can tell,” remarked Ned. “We’d better find out all we canabout him while we have the chance. If Professor Snodgrass is going toremain here it would be a good thing for him to know about this guy.”

  “Here comes Marie now,” said Jerry. “Go at her again, Bob, and see ifshe can’t speak English.”

  “I will,” agreed the stout youth.

  When Marie again approached their table, in response to a beckoningsignal, Bob began:

  “_Marie, de la cochon la petite cocher est le----_”

  “Oh, for cats’ sake!” cried Ned, “you’ll be worse tangled than before.Can’t you get some American words? Here, let me----”

  But at that moment there came an interruption in the person of a memberof the American military police who, thrusting his head into therestaurant, called:

  “Anybody here that’s booked to go on the _Sherman_ had better hike backto the dock. She’s going to sail soon.”

  “Has the machinery been repaired?” asked Jerry.

  “Yes! She’s getting ready to sail. You fellows going on her?”

  “Yes,” answered Ned.

  “Oh, you lucky dogs!” sighed the other. “Well, get a move on. We gotorders to round up everybody that had shore leave,” and with a friendlywave of his hand he departed.

  “Come on!” cried Jerry, gathering up a few possessions, an examplefollowed by the others.

  “I’ll pay the bill,” said Ned, taking a handful of change out of hispocket.

  “Where’s Marie?” asked Bob. “I want to----”

  “Oh, never mind finding out what _cochon_ means!” exclaimed Jerry. “Wedon’t want to be left!”

  “I want to say good-bye!” declared Bob, indignantly. “And I was goingto ask her if she could put us up some sandwiches.”

  “Cupboard love!” laughed Ned. “Come on! Move lively!”

  “The pepper-hash individual is moving, too,” commented Jerry, as theyleft the restaurant, having noted that the man who had so resentedbeing taken for Professor Snodgrass was also settling his bill.

  “Well, if he doesn’t run into us again I’ll be thankful,” remarkedJerry. “He sure did make me feel like twenty-nine cents when he turnedon me the way he did.”

  Quickly the three chums made their way back to the dock to which the_Sherman_ had returned. They saw others on the same errand. The repairwork had been completed sooner than was expected, and now the siren ofthe vessel was blowing to call back those who had been allowed shoreleave. Fortunately each one, when being granted permission to “stretchhis legs,” had been told to hold himself in readiness, and none hadgone far away.

  The Motor Boys were soon on board again, and after a slight delay thetransport was again moving slowly from the dock.

  “Off again!” exclaimed Ned.

  “Yes; and let’s hope with better luck!” added Bob.

  Jerry looked about the crowded deck. As he did so he gave a start, andgrasped the arm of Ned.

  “Look!” he exclaimed.

  “What is it?” asked Ned. “See a ghost?”

  “No, but if that isn’t our peppery friend of the restaurant--_lecochon_--I’ll do K. P. for a week!”