THE LINGUIST

By PHILIP HEWITT-MYRING

THE company gathered round the centre table of the larger café in Gue du Lez was being good enough to congratulate me on my French.

" One would say you were one of ourselves," declared the engineer of the Ponts et Chaussees.

Hiding my dismay (it is unreliably reported that a Parisian artist who had meant to stay a month in the little Provençal town departed after three days, since he could neither under- stand a word that the inhabitants said to him nor succeed in communicating his thoughts to them), I bowed my acknowledgements.

" That is very true," remarked the Mayor ; " and yet," he added judicially, " I remark in the speech of Monsieur Youeet a trace—just the faintest trace, mind you—of that sing-song in the voice from which, I have been told by my friend Captain Marc, no Englishman when speaking French is wholly exempt."

" Your friend is right," I declared. " It is almost im- possible for us to eliminate it. Now the Americans —."

" Ah, the Americans," said the Mayor flashing a beaming smile at my wife. " They have, it is true, the real inwardness of the matter."

The compliment was well deserved. My wife had reached the sixth lesson in her Beginner's Course, and what she did not know about the five previous instalments was not worth knowing : moreover, French spoken with the accent of Charleston, South Carolina, is an enchanting tongue.

But it seemed well to shift the conversational ground a little.

" This Captain Marc," I said. " Does he then speak English ? I do not think I have met him."

" He is away with his ship at present," said the Mayor. " But he is expected back at his home before the end of next week. He lives in that charming cottage next to the slaughter- house on the Valreas road. He speaks English to perfection."

" He can recite English poetry, too," said the postmaster from the far end of the table.

" Well, not a very long poem," said the Mayor reluctantly. " But I understand it is a famous one."

" What is it called ? " I asked.

" That I do not know," replied the Mayor. " It recounts, I understand, an episode from English history. Something about a queen and a savage beast." " Her name, I think, was Poozie," said the postmaster.

" Boadicea ? " I hazarded—for it could scarcely have been Victoria, Mary, Anne, Elizabeth, Maud or Matilda ; who were the only six (or should it be five ?) other queens that I could think of.

" Perhaps," said the schoolmaster doubtfully.

" In any case ; a fine fellow," said the Mayor. " You must see him when he comes and speak English with him. I am sure you will like him."

We liked him immensely. He was a large, dark, quiet man with a certain dignity and assurance about him which were not impaired by the twinkle that often came into his eyes. He was a tireless walker, a good shot and, in his slow, rather ponderous manner, a first-rate conversationalist : that is, in French, for all our efforts to induce him to speak English came to next to nothing.

One English expression, it is true, formed constant part even of his French discourse, and that was " Tipperary." which he used as a species of verbal punctuation mark.

"Eh lien, Monsieur Youeet. Teepairairee. ca calk?" was his regular form of salutation.

To which I would reply with the conscientiousness of German in a more exalted connexion : " Tres bien, Teepairairee, merci."

He had learned his English, he told us, when sailing in British ships. We could only assume that there was an abnormal proportion of deaf-mutes in the English merchant-service. Or was it possible that—as he himself pretended—he was merely shy ?

I tackled him once or twice about his famous recitation : for the identity of Queen Poozie was causing me mild insomnia ; but he flatly refused to deliver it.

" But on the evening before I leave for Marseilles — he said eventually. " You will give a party at the café : a nice party with all your friends. And you will sing Teepairairee' and I will say my poem."

The prospect of singing " Tipperary " in an open-air café, unaccompanied, and before a gathering which long before I had finished would inevitably include half the population of the town, was so appalling that I nearly let the matter drop for ever. But shame, and the realisation that if I did not see the thing through I would be haunted by a shadowy, if regal, figure for the rest of my life, brought me to seal the bargain on the spot. We gave our party—a highly inclusive party at which the Mayor was the guest of honour, but a former handyman of the Montelimar autobus company by far the most reputed personage—and afterwards I sang " Tipperary."

My forecast of the performance was erroneous in two particulars. Half the village had assembled outside the low paling that separates fie café from the place long before I rose to my feet ; and I was not unaccompanied. I had not got through the first quavering bars when a small white dog, the property of one of our guests, threw back his head and joined in my efforts to make night hideous with a series of prolonged and heartrending ululations. I stuck it through the first verse ; then broke down in the laughter that had already seized the rest of the company.

I had spread the news of Captain Marc's promise throughout the gathering ; and there were shouts for him to fulfil it. Very slowly he rose to his feet, then stood for a moment, massive, solemn and motionless, until he was quite sure that the audience was giving him its fullest attention. He then spoke in French.

" I am very happy," he said, " to recite for our host one of the masterpieces of poetry of his native land. And after- wards you must ask him to tell you all about it and explain wherein its pathos and beauty lies."

He coughed slightly ; and then in a slow and completely expressionless chant he recited : " Poozie caht, poozie caht, vair ave you been ? ' ' I've been to London to zee zee qveen.' Poozie caht, poozie caht, wort did you zair ? ' ' I fricktened a leetle moose under a shah.' " He left for Marseilles next morning. I have not the slightest idea whether he knew what his poem was about ; whether, indeed, he knew any English at all beyond the few words we had heard from him ; why so modest a man should have wanted the inhabitants of Gue du Lez to regard him as a lir 7,uist—assuming that he really did so ; or to what extent, if at all, he had pulled my leg.

Whatever the truth of the matter, I spent a good part of our remaining days in the town in expounding the beauty and majesty of " Poozie caht, poozie caht," to all and sundry.

Just in case my leg had been pulled, I added that the lines, though noble, were also susceptible of a highly im- polite interpretation. I would leave it, I said, to Captain Marc to go into details when he next returned.