peril of my life!"

These words must have frightened her, for she skurried away very fast.

Dan's voice rose on the air:

Oh, bring some soap, why don't you!"

The reply was Italian. Dan resumed:

Soap, you know--soap. That is what I want--soap. S-o-a-p, soap;

s-o-p-e, soap; s-o-u-p, soap. Hurry up! I don't know how you Irish

spell it, but I want it. Spell it to suit yourself, but fetch it.

I'm freezing."

I heard the doctor say impressively:

Dan, how often have we told you that these foreigners cannot understand

English? Why will you not depend upon us? Why will you not tell us what

you want, and let us ask for it in the language of the country? It would

save us a great deal of the humiliation your reprehensible ignorance

causes us. I will address this person in his mother tongue: 'Here,

cospetto! corpo di Bacco! Sacramento! Solferino!--Soap, you son of a

gun!' Dan, if you would let us talk for you, you would never expose your

ignorant vulgarity."

209

The Innocents Abroad