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Read Ebook: The American by James Henry
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Ebook has 2422 lines and 133866 words, and 49 pages
"To take lessons."
"To take lessons, my daughter? From thee?"
"From you!"
"From me, my child? How should I give lessons?"
M. Nioche stood aghast, but under his daughter's eye he collected his wits, and, doing his best to assume an agreeable smile, he executed her commands. "Would it please you to receive instruction in our beautiful language?" he inquired, with an appealing quaver.
"To study French?" asked Newman, staring.
M. Nioche pressed his finger-tips together and slowly raised his shoulders. "A little conversation!"
"Conversation--that's it!" murmured Mademoiselle No?mie, who had caught the word. "The conversation of the best society."
"Our French conversation is famous, you know," M. Nioche ventured to continue. "It's a great talent."
"But isn't it awfully difficult?" asked Newman, very simply.
"I can't fancy myself chattering French!" said Newman with a laugh. "And yet, I suppose that the more a man knows the better."
"I suppose it would help me a great deal, knocking about Paris, to know the language."
"Ah, there are so many things monsieur must want to say: difficult things!"
"Everything I want to say is difficult. But you give lessons?"
Poor M. Nioche was embarrassed; he smiled more appealingly. "I am not a regular professor," he admitted. "I can't nevertheless tell him that I'm a professor," he said to his daughter.
"A teacher of languages in neither case! Much more formerly and much less to-day! And if he asks the price of the lessons?"
"He won't ask it," said Mademoiselle No?mie.
"What he pleases, I may say?"
"Never! That's bad style."
"If he asks, then?"
Mademoiselle No?mie had put on her bonnet and was tying the ribbons. She smoothed them out, with her soft little chin thrust forward. "Ten francs," she said quickly.
"Oh, my daughter! I shall never dare."
"Don't dare, then! He won't ask till the end of the lessons, and then I will make out the bill."
M. Nioche turned to the confiding foreigner again, and stood rubbing his hands, with an air of seeming to plead guilty which was not intenser only because it was habitually so striking. It never occurred to Newman to ask him for a guarantee of his skill in imparting instruction; he supposed of course M. Nioche knew his own language, and his appealing forlornness was quite the perfection of what the American, for vague reasons, had always associated with all elderly foreigners of the lesson-giving class. Newman had never reflected upon philological processes. His chief impression with regard to ascertaining those mysterious correlatives of his familiar English vocables which were current in this extraordinary city of Paris was, that it was simply a matter of a good deal of unwonted and rather ridiculous muscular effort on his own part. "How did you learn English?" he asked of the old man.
"How much French can I learn in a month?"
"What does he say?" asked Mademoiselle No?mie.
M. Nioche explained.
"He will speak like an angel!" said his daughter.
"Oh yes, I should like to learn French," Newman went on, with democratic confidingness. "Hang me if I should ever have thought of it! I took for granted it was impossible. But if you learned my language, why shouldn't I learn yours?" and his frank, friendly laugh drew the sting from the jest. "Only, if we are going to converse, you know, you must think of something cheerful to converse about."
"You are very good, sir; I am overcome!" said M. Nioche, throwing out his hands. "But you have cheerfulness and happiness for two!"
"Oh no," said Newman more seriously. "You must be bright and lively; that's part of the bargain."
M. Nioche bowed, with his hand on his heart. "Very well, sir; you have already made me lively."
"Come and bring me my picture then; I will pay you for it, and we will talk about that. That will be a cheerful subject!"
Mademoiselle No?mie had collected her accessories, and she gave the precious Madonna in charge to her father, who retreated backwards out of sight, holding it at arm's-length and reiterating his obeisance. The young lady gathered her shawl about her like a perfect Parisienne, and it was with the smile of a Parisienne that she took leave of her patron.
The sound of his voice quickened the other's memory, his face expanded to its fullest capacity, and he also broke into a laugh. "Why, Newman--I'll be blowed! Where in the world--I declare--who would have thought? You know you have changed."
"You haven't!" said Newman.
"Not for the better, no doubt. When did you get here?"
"Three days ago."
"Why didn't you let me know?"
"I have been here these six years."
"It must be eight or nine since we met."
"Something of that sort. We were very young."
"It was in St. Louis, during the war. You were in the army."
"Oh no, not I! But you were."
"I believe I was."
"You came out all right?"
"I came out with my legs and arms--and with satisfaction. All that seems very far away."
"And how long have you been in Europe?"
"Seventeen days."
"First time?"
"Yes, very much so."
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