CHAPTER XIII
Advice and Bluff
"No, no, boy. Not 'la silence' but 'le silence'."
"But, sir," protested the boy, "it's according to rule; it ends in asilent 'e'."
"An exception, Beverley," explained Mr. Jaques. "An exception. One ofthe peculiarities of the French language. But this might help you toremember. Silence is one of the things that a woman cannot keep,therefore the French place that word in the masculine gender----"
"I say, sir," interrupted Dick Beverley. "Look at that moth. Ratherlate for this time of year, isn't it?"
"Never mind the moth," said his house-master. "You'll see plenty ofvarieties of moths during the next few months," he sighed, envious ofthe high-spirited youth. "Now, say in French: 'Will you kindly tellme the way to the police-station'. Good; 'poste' has two differentmeanings: 'post-office' and 'police-station', according to gender.Now say the same sentence in Italian. H'm, yes, passable. You havethat written slip of directions the Head gave you? And your Italianpassport: you're keeping that in a different pocket to your notes?And don't address strangers on Continental railways. If in doubt asksomeone in uniform. All railway officials are in uniform on the otherside of the Channel, you know."
Dick Beverley nodded. Already the well-meaning Mr. Jaques had dinnedthe various and somewhat bewildering instructions and injunctionsinto his excited head at least half a dozen times between CharingCross and Folkestone. But the boy's brain had closed its doors,temporarily at least, to the advice of his house-master. On the eveof a vast adventure it is often so, although before long a confidantwould be welcome.
"Monsieur Deschamps will meet you at the Gare du Nord," continued Mr.Jaques. "The journey across Paris is the most difficult part of thebusiness, but that difficulty will, I trust, be eliminated. I believethere is a _wagon lit_ straight through from Paris to Brindisi."
Dick again nodded, but his attention was centred on the animatedharbour as viewed from the lounge of the hotel.
"From Brindisi," resumed the master, "you proceed to Taranto. If the_Titania_ should not be there, what do you do?"
"Stop at the Hotel d'Annunzio, Strada Miratore," replied Dickpromptly. He knew that bit.
"That is so," agreed the pedantic Mr. Jaques; "and above all, bediscreet. Remember what I told you about 'silence'. I was given tounderstand, during a brief interview with your brother, that absolutediscretion is necessary--not only for your own welfare but for thepeople you are about to join. Remember also to keep your French papermoney in a different compartment of your pocket-book from yourItalian notes, and examine your change carefully. There is a lot ofbad money about in those countries, I believe."
"Like a lot of bacon we get in England, sir," added the irrepressibleyouth.
Mr. Jaques nodded. He could well afford to be sympathetic on thatsubject.
"You have your keys, I hope," he asked, returning to the lengthyexhortation to a juvenile traveller. "The _douaniers_--custom-housepeople--will want to examine your luggage, you know."
Dick produced the keys; a large jack-knife, a catapult, and a pieceof whip-cord were disclosed during the operation.
"You had better let me have that catapult," observed thehouse-master. "I cannot conceive why you should want to take a thinglike that away with you, especially as the possession of a catapultis an offence against the rules of the school."
Beverley junior surrendered the catapult cheerfully. After all it wasone of three that he carried about his person.
Ten minutes later Mr. Jaques and Dick parted company on board thecross-Channel steamer, the former to return with a feeling that hehad carried out a duty conscientiously, the latter realizing at lastthat he was actually on the threshold of a big adventure.
Dick remained on deck. Even the strong desire to go below, to see ifhe could prevail upon the engineer to allow him to enter theengine-room, was not enough to tear him from the sight of thereceding shores of Kent and the constant stream of shipping passingto and fro on one of the main arteries of the world's maritime trade.
He was a high-spirited youth, no better and no worse than the averageBritish schoolboy. He had received his colours at "footer", was amoderate bat, could swim and box, and could ride almost any make ofmotor-cycle and understand its mechanism as well. True, he hadn't amotor-bike of his own, for the simple reason that funds wouldn't runto it, but his unfailing good nature and ability to undertakerepairing jobs were sufficient to give him the run of the majority ofmotor-cycles belonging to his fellow-boarders.
Normally he was open and inclined to be communicative, but, with Mr.Jaques' warning somewhere in the back of his brain, it was notsurprising that he showed a tendency to "choke off" an attempt atconversation on the part of a fellow-passenger on theFolkestone-Boulogne boat.
"Your name's Beverley, isn't it?" inquired the stranger. Dick hadnoticed him in the foyer of the hotel.
"Yes," he replied shortly. "He can see that by reading the labels onmy luggage," he added mentally.
"I know your father," continued the stranger. "My name's Wilson."
"Really," rejoined Dick. "You didn't speak to him in the hotel, didyou?"
"No," was the answer, after a moment's hesitation. "I saw you wereboth talking very earnestly, and naturally one doesn't like to buttin on the eve of parting."
Dick considered. Either the "old buffer" had made a genuine mistakeor else he was trying to "pump him". Possibly the latter.
"I'm going as far as Brindisi to meet my daughter from Egypt,"continued Mr. Wilson. "You are going farther, I see?"
"Yes, to Taranto," replied Dick. "Cruising in the Mediterranean."
"Then you are one of the _Titania's_ party."
"Am I?" rejoined the lad.
The stranger smiled.
"Of course you are," he said. "And you are going farther than theMediterranean, I believe."
"We were," declared Dick mendaciously, for he considered himselfquite justified in bluffing the fellow. "We were, but the long cruisehas been abandoned. Don't know why."
"You'll be quite a traveller. Have you journeyed on the Continentbefore?"
Dick shook his head.
"No? Then I'll have to give an eye to you," continued Mr. Wilson."Rather a long journey without having anyone to talk to."
"Don't think I'd take it on if I were you, Mr. Wilson," said Dick ina well-simulated, confidential tone. "You see, I'm let out before Iought to be. I only came out of the sanny yesterday."
"The sanny?" queried Mr. Wilson, in perplexity.
"Yes, that is the sanatorium, you know," explained Dick, warming tohis part. "Scarlet fever; 'fraid I haven't quite finished peelingyet."
"Er--er--I don't quite understand," murmured the stranger uneasily,moving back a pace.
"Of course with proper precautions it may be all right," continuedthe fever-stricken youth cheerfully. "I've been cautioned to keep tothe lee side of the boat so that the germs--beastly thingsgerms--don't get blown on the people. In the train I've got to keepthe window open at night, if other passengers don't object, and sniffcarbolic powder. But I'll be free from infection by the time we getto Brindisi, I expect."
Chuckling to himself, Dick watched Mr. Wilson beat a hurried retreat.
"If I'd taken old Jaques' advice about keeping silence I'd have hadto have been awfully rude," he soliloquized. "As it is, I've put thewind up him. Wonder who he is? And he said he knows my father, too.That's rich!"
He did not see Mr. Wilson again, save for a glimpse of his back atthe Gare du Nord, during the journey to the south of Italy. "Mr.Wilson", or to give him his real name, Herr Kaspar von Giespert,thought fit to alter his proposed route, for instead of proceedingvia Brindisi he booked to Marseilles, hoping to catch a Messageriesboat to Singapore.
It was a pure coincidence that von Giespert and Dick werefellow-passengers on the Folkestone-Boulogne boat, but Mr. Jaques'over-cautious exhortation had given the Hun a clue. Happening to hearthe word _Titania_, von Giespert pricked up his ears. He decided tosound t
he open-faced British boy; he might have succeeded but for aninitial false move in assuming that Jaques was Dick's parent.
Von Giespert was cooling his heels at the southern French seaportdays after Dick Beverley joined the yacht _Titania_ at Taranto.