Jerry Hopkins was the first of the three chums to regain his composure and take the situation in hand. Quietly he motioned to Ned to fall back, and, at the same time, nodded to Bob not to approach, as the stout youth seemed about to do. The two soldiers had had enough experience with Jerry’s method in an emergency to be willing to let him manage matters now.

“What do you mean? What do you mean?” spluttered the little man, who, from the back, had so closely resembled Professor Snodgrass. “How dare you insult me?”

“There seems to be some mistake,” said Jerry, trying to keep his voice under control, for, truth to tell, he was as indignant as his chums were at the unwarranted assumption on the part of the stranger.

“Mistake? I should say there had been!” was the exclamation from the little man. “You made a mistake in thinking I had anything to do[27] with that—that charlatan! That pretender! That scientific faker, who calls himself ‘Professor’ Snodgrass. A mistake indeed!”

“Wait a minute! Wait a minute!” broke in Ned, unable longer to hear his friend thus abused. “The mistake will be on the other foot in a minute if you keep on that way!” he said indignantly.

The little man seemed about to rise from the table to attack Ned, but Jerry gently thrust back his impetuous chum.

“Let me handle him,” he whispered to Ned.

“Is he crazy?” asked Bob.

“It begins to look that way,” answered Jerry, as the little man resumed his seat at his table, though he did not continue his meal.

“We wish to apologize for having mistaken you for a friend of ours,” said Jerry suavely. “Seeing you from the back we took you to be Professor Snodgrass, and——”

“Is he a friend of yours?” asked the little man fiercely.

“He certainly is!” exclaimed Bob truculently.

“Well, all I have to say is that I am sorry for you,” said the little man. “You had no right to assume that I was he, and your effrontery in publicly addressing me as such needs to be apologized for.”

“Which we are doing,” said Jerry stiffly. “And I might add,” he went on, “that if you continue in[28] your present strain there will be something else to apologize for, and not on our part, either!” He seemed quite a different Jerry now.

“We have made proper reparation for having mistaken you for our friend, Professor Snodgrass,” he continued, “and that, to a gentleman, should be sufficient. I think that is all, sir!”

Jerry turned stiffly and marched back to his own table, followed by Ned and Bob, who had left their seats to join him. For a few seconds the little bald-headed man did not seem to know what to do. He said something about its being “all right now,” but mingled with this were grunts and mutterings about “insolent puppies,” which words, however, Jerry and his chums thought best to ignore.

“Say, what was eating him, anyhow?” asked Bob, when they had resumed their seats for their dessert which the pretty Marie was then bringing to them.

“I guess you mean what had he been eating,” said Ned. “Red pepper and chili con carne I imagine, with a dish of tabasco sauce and frijoles on the side.”

“Reminds me of our Mexico trip,” interposed Bob. “What was the name of that Spanish fellow who was always making so much trouble?”

“You mean Vasco Bilette,” suggested Jerry.

“That’s it! This fellow, who really looks a[29] lot like our dear, old professor, certainly is touchy.”

“He certainly is,” agreed Jerry. “Say, Bob,” he went on, “you claim you can parlez-vous better than the rest of us. Suppose you ask Marie if she knows this duck.”

“Sure!” assented the stout lad. “Say, chere Marie,” he went on as the pretty little waitress came up to their table, “comprehendez-vous him?” and he pointed to the man who was the cause of the Motor Boys’ discomfiture. For it had been disquieting, to say the least, to have the eyes of all in the restaurant turned on them during the fracas, as Ned termed it.

“Comprehendez-vous him?” asked Bob of Marie. “You know. La petite hommes de la table d’hote,” and to make sure that his “French” would be understood he pointed to the little man.

“Say, what’s that you’re getting off?” demanded Jerry.

“I’m asking her if she’s wise to the guy who’s eating in this restaurant,” translated Bob. “Comprehendez—that means ‘do you know.’ La petite—that means ‘little’ and hommes means ‘man.’”

“He’s right there,” declared Ned earnestly, while Marie looked amusedly at “les trois mousquetaires.”

“How do you know?” snapped Jerry.

“Why, isn’t it painted all over the cars we’ve[30] been riding in, ‘chevaux 8—hommes 40’? That is eight horses or forty men. Sure hommes mean men, or man.”

“Watch Bob swell up,” commented Jerry.

“Well, you told me to spout French, and I’m doing it,” said the lad with the perpetual appetite. “Now give her a chance to answer. I’ll ask her again. Chere Marie! Comprehendez-vous la petite hommes de la table d’hote?”

The pretty waitress placed on the table the dishes she had brought up to serve, turned for a look over her shoulder at the man Bob referred to, and then looked back, with a smile, at the stout lad and his chums.

“Oui,” she answered, guessing shrewdly at Bob’s meaning and shrugging her shoulders expressively.

“Oh, ho! So she does know him!” exclaimed Ned, for in spite of the fact that they let Bob assert his knowledge of French, they could not help acquiring some of the words, and that “oui” meant “yes” had been one of their first acquisitions.

“Who is he?” asked Jerry.

“She can’t understand that,” declared Bob. “Wait, I’ll translate it to her.” Then, laboriously he said: “Le nom des hommes? Comprehendez-vous?”

“What’s that?” Ned wanted to know.

[31]

“I’m asking her if she knows his name,” replied Bob.

They looked anxiously at Marie. Again she turned and glanced at the little man who had waxed so indignant at being taken for Professor Snodgrass.

“Cochon!” exclaimed Marie, and she seemed to snap out the word as a second lieutenant issues his commands to the awkward squad.

“What did she say?” chorused Ned and Jerry.

Bob was nonplussed. He scratched his head and then repeated the word to Marie.

“Cochon?” he asked.

“Cochon! Cochon!” was the swift answer. “Oui! Cochon des cochons!”

“Um!” murmured Bob.

There was a moment’s silence, during which Marie moved off to serve another table.

“Well, what is he, a German spy?” asked Ned. “If he is, he has his nerve with him—showing up here after the armistice.”

“Yes, tell us what she said,” begged Jerry.

“Well,” returned Bob slowly, “you know the French language is very queer. It isn’t like any other language.”

“Oh, we know that all right!” exclaimed Ned. “You needn’t tell us that. Even though you may know a lot more about it than we do, it hasn’t taken us six months to appreciate the fact that it’s[32] a mighty elusive way of conversing. But what I want to know, and what Jerry wants to know, is: What did Marie say that pepper-hash guy was?”

“Well,” confessed Bob, “that’s just it. If the French language didn’t have so many words in it that sound a lot alike, but mean a lot of different things, I could be sure. She called him a cochon.”

“A cochon of a cochon,” added Jerry.

“Yes, that’s what she did,” said Bob.

“Well, but what is a cochon?” asked Ned.

“It’s either a pig or a coachman,” said Bob, desperately. “That’s the trouble. I’m not sure which. I forget whether cocher is pig or whether it’s coachman, and I don’t know whether cochon is coachman or pig. I know it’s one or the other, but just now I sort of forget.”

“A heap of good your French does us!” laughed Jerry. “If she said he was a coachman it might mean he was a respectable, though humble, member of society. If, on the other hand, she called him a pig, it might mean he had something to do with starting this war. Now which is it?”

Bob scratched his head again. Plainly, he was “stumped.”

“I’ll ask her again when she comes back,” he said. “I wish I had my French book here. I sort of think that cochon means pig, and, in that case——”

“Well, he certainly acted like a pig, so we’ll let[33] it go at that,” declared Jerry. “The idea of getting on his ear just because we happened to mistake him for Professor Snodgrass!”

“And he did look a lot like him from the back,” declared Ned.

“Sure,” assented Bob. “I wonder where the dear old chap is, anyhow? I wish he were going back with us.”

“Not much chance of that,” said Jerry. “He said he’d like to, and he really started back, but he received word to take up some other line of scientific investigation before he left to go back to Boxwood Hall, and you can wager your last cartridge that he’ll do it. But this man seems to have some sort of grudge against him, taking us up the way he did.”

“That’s right,” agreed Ned. “Say, Bob, you’ll have to tackle your friend Marie again. See if you can’t find out more about this duck.”

“I will,” promised Bob. “I’ll speak to her as soon as she comes back. It might be, you know, that this fellow is some relation to the Germans the professor captured.”

“Not much chance of that,” declared Jerry. “This cocher or cochon doesn’t seem a bit like a Hun.”

“You never can tell,” remarked Ned. “We’d better find out all we can about him while we have the chance. If Professor Snodgrass is going to[34] remain here it would be a good thing for him to know about this guy.”

“Here comes Marie now,” said Jerry. “Go at her again, Bob, and see if she can’t speak English.”

“I will,” agreed the stout youth.

When Marie again approached their table, in response to a beckoning signal, Bob began:

“Marie, de la cochon la petite cocher est le——”

“Oh, for cats’ sake!” cried Ned, “you’ll be worse tangled than before. Can’t you get some American words? Here, let me——”

But at that moment there came an interruption in the person of a member of the American military police who, thrusting his head into the restaurant, called:

“Anybody here that’s booked to go on the Sherman had better hike back to the dock. She’s going to sail soon.”

“Has the machinery been repaired?” asked Jerry.

“Yes! She’s getting ready to sail. You fellows going on her?”

“Yes,” answered Ned.

“Oh, you lucky dogs!” sighed the other. “Well, get a move on. We got orders to round up everybody that had shore leave,” and with a friendly wave of his hand he departed.

[35]

“Come on!” cried Jerry, gathering up a few possessions, an example followed by the others.

“I’ll pay the bill,” said Ned, taking a handful of change out of his pocket.

“Where’s Marie?” asked Bob. “I want to——”

“Oh, never mind finding out what cochon means!” exclaimed Jerry. “We don’t want to be left!”

“I want to say good-bye!” declared Bob, indignantly. “And I was going to ask her if she could put us up some sandwiches.”

“Cupboard love!” laughed Ned. “Come on! Move lively!”

“The pepper-hash individual is moving, too,” commented Jerry, as they left the restaurant, having noted that the man who had so resented being taken for Professor Snodgrass was also settling his bill.

“Well, if he doesn’t run into us again I’ll be thankful,” remarked Jerry. “He sure did make me feel like twenty-nine cents when he turned on me the way he did.”

Quickly the three chums made their way back to the dock to which the Sherman had returned. They saw others on the same errand. The repair work had been completed sooner than was expected, and now the siren of the vessel was blowing to call back those who had been allowed shore leave.[36] Fortunately each one, when being granted permission to “stretch his legs,” had been told to hold himself in readiness, and none had gone far away.

The Motor Boys were soon on board again, and after a slight delay the transport was again moving slowly from the dock.

“Off again!” exclaimed Ned.

“Yes; and let’s hope with better luck!” added Bob.

Jerry looked about the crowded deck. As he did so he gave a start, and grasped the arm of Ned.

“Look!” he exclaimed.

“What is it?” asked Ned. “See a ghost?”

“No, but if that isn’t our peppery friend of the restaurant—le cochon—I’ll do K. P. for a week!”