Judge — September 7, 1901 — page 5: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

Judge’s Funny Stories by Serious People, and Vice Versa. | MY NEW LANGUAGE. By F. Heptinson Smith. OME years ago I determined on a sketching tour through Spain and Portugal. 1 wanted old church walls fringed with pomegranates, strings of mules laden with skins of wine, sefori- tas with red-heeled slippers, and the like. Sam, my traveling compan- ion, said he didn’t know a word of the language, and I knew that we couldn't do anything without it; better stay at home. Sam is not my servant, remember, but my chum. He's not an artist, but a “ buggist ” with a leaning toward butterflies. He's got an- other name —two of them—tle last with three syllables, but it is unnecessary to mention them here. And then again, Sam wouldn't like it. So I sent for old Morales—Professor Ceballos Morales, teacher of modern languages—Italian, German, French and Spanish. I speak the first three like a native—of New York. When Morales presented himself he proved to be a sun-dried Hidalgo, with a wrinkled, saddle-colored skin, a broken assortment of teeth—three gone —a sharp nose, two quick, restless eyes, a brown wig and a pair of pointed mustachios. The Professor bowed as low as Sancho would have done to Don Quixote, rested his hooked cane against my easel, laid his hat on the floor, drew off a pair of green kid gloves and said that in “four week—seex at te mostest "— he could teach me “ te lang- widge.” Not, of course, to “hablar” with“ perfectione,” but so that I could travel through the land of his birth with ease and safety. So we started in. It was June, cool, lovely, leafy June, everywhere except under the glass of my sky- light. There it was as hot as the hinges of Hades. But Tkept at it. I had verbs with my coffee, nouns with my luncheon, and short sentences with my dinner, Wherever I went I carried a grammar in my outside pocket. This I studied on street corners during the day and under the gaslights at night while waiting for trolleys and horse-cars. By the end of the second week [ could ask for the green umbrella of grandfather and the new hat of’ my aunt. By the end of the fourth week the Professor could say to me, “It is not the bird that flies but the camel that walks,” and I understood him !—got the camel right every time. This knowledge brought a rapture with it to which, up to that mo- ment, I had been a stranger. By the end of the sixth week — the week I sailed — I was discharged cured, Even the Professor admitted it, and would stand on the stairs out- side my studio door and wave me adios and wish me buenos dias with the same shrug of his shoulders and upward chicken-drinking glance of the eye that he would have given any other caballero of his acquaintance. Under the quickening impulse of these last subtle touches, I began to be on good terms with myself. No seforita would turn away from me now with a blank stare; no hotel keeper would flecce me out of my last eseta; no bull fighter would pass me by unnoticed. A twist to my mus- che, a dash of garlic in my salad, and one word of this pure unadulter- ted Castilian accent which I had just acquired, and I would be recognized s one of them. But my greatest triumph would be over Sam. Sam knew German, tench and some English —not much that was pure, but enough. He could get a wiener-schnitzel in any café in Munich, and could ask his way ick to his hotel across the Seine without having to go round by the Arc > Triomphe, but he would be stranded and dead broke when it came to pare Castilian. The certainty, therefore, of his being dependent on me ior his bare meat and shelter while in sanny Spain, was to be the supremest ¥, HOPKINSON SMITH. The man stopped, and said, in a rich North of Ireland brogue: ‘“‘Ihearyez; if SP ye'll howld that clack o° yours I'll sind a man ter take yer thraps.” . House. So I ran my finger down the part of the joy of his com- panionship. On the way across the ocean I thumbed the gram- mar every hour of the day and held private lessons with my- self, conjugating verbs and arranging conversations with imaginary hotel keepers and travelers, 1 was afraid 1 would lose my grip on what Thad if I slackened my hold a single hour. Sam said in his choicest English “that if I didn’t stop working my mouth that way, a-chewin’ Spanish, they'd take me for a missionary mumblin’ aves for my sins.” I quote this to show some of the things 1 have to put up with in Sam. When we landed, took train and stopped at Hendaye —the last station in France— I became more bold. I told | Sam — not offensively, but with a sense of the importance of the announcement — that hereafter I should confine myself entirely to the language of the country. This, 1 added, was a courtesy 1 owed the inhabitants. In proof of this resolu- tion I began on the first native I met—a kiln-dried caballero this time — seated opposite me in the compartment. He was years younger than the Professor, and had a cigarette glued to his lower lip, which wabbled as he talked, but never lost its hold. He list- ened attentively and ‘cour- teously for the first half hour, answering me in such mono- syllables as ro," * Bue no,” “es Verdad,” etc.—even Sam understood these — and then whispered to Sam in French, so this beast of a chum told me afterwards : “Does the amiable Hidalgo ny other language but Spanish ?” 1 saw Sam double up, cram his pudgy fist into his mouth and catch his breath, but we were near- ing the frontier, and I was too intent on framing my first sentence on Span- ish soil to give him any attention, The first thing needed was a porter, as our traps must be taken from the train and carried to the Custom of my dictionary, found the Moral said he could teach me ‘te langwidge.”” word and instantly constructed the sentence. “ Cargador (porter), deseo (I wish) un hombre (a man) tomar (to take) mis cosas (my things).”* : Then I fired it point blank ata fellow in a blue blouse. On the blouse’s second trip I blazed away again, modulating the ac cent this time, beginning “ Cargador” in a careless, even slightly familiar way, as if 1 were resuming a conversation in which I had forgotten to mention my small baggage then on the platform before me where the train- man had dumped it. No response—not even a side glance. Sam winked at the caballero with the cigarette — everybody had to get out at the frontier—and passed his hand over his face. I turned my back, opened my phrase book, went over all the words, satisfied myself that they were not only correct Spanish but elegant Castilian, waited for the third trip of the blouse, and roared out in his ear : “ Cargador, deseo un hombre tomar mis cosa The man stopped, tilted his truck, pushed his cap back from his fore- head, and said, in a rich North of Ireland brogue: “I hear yez; if ye’ll howld that clack o’ yours I'll sind a man ter take yer thraps.” When Sam got through laughing, I walked to the edge of the platform, took the dictionary and phrase book from my inside pocket, and with the supremest satisfaction dropped them into the ditch. comicbooks.com