ring me the _bur_."

The servant took no notice of him.

"Call him a _garcon_" said Grossbeck.

"_Garcon!_" shouted Lynch.

"_Monsieur_," replied the man.

"Bring me the _bur_."

"You might as well call for a Canada thistle," laughed Duncan, who was
one of the best French scholars in the Josephine.

"I want some butter; I have eaten up all the _bif-stek_, and all the
_pomme de terres_, and now I want some bread and butter. These fellows
don't understand their own language."

"_M'apportez du beurre_," added Duncan.

"_Oui, oui, oui!_" exclaimed the waiter, producing the required article.

"That's the idea," replied Lynch; "that man's improving. But this
_beurre_ is so fresh I can't eat it; I want some salt."

"Call for it, then," laughed Duncan.

"I will; here's a go. _Garcon_, mapperty sellier!"

"Good!" roared Duncan. "If we had a saddle of mutton for supper, I
should suppose you would want what you called for."

"I want the salt."

"I thought you did; and that's the reason why you called for a saddler."

"I didn't call for any saddler. I said _sellier_."

"Precisely so; and that is a saddler."

"What shall I say?"

"_Sel._"

"_Sel_; _sellier_. Well, I knew there was a sell about it somewhere."

"Precisely; but you were sold. I advise you not to make any long
speeches in French."

"You may bet your life I shall not," replied Lynch.

"Just mention the thing you want in one word; then you won't confuse
_garcon's_ intellect by flooding it with ideas."

"_Garcon--sel_," added Lynch, acting upon this excellent advice.

The waiter brought the _sel_, and nobody was sold this time.

"I think I shall pick up the French language in time," added Lynch,
encouraged by his success.

"Perhaps you will, but the Hotel Royal will have crumbled to dust before
that happy event occurs."

There was any quantity of blunders made at the table, and some of the
students had nearly choked themselves to death with laughing at them,
and at the blank looks of the waiters when spoken to in a tongue which
Mr. Fluxion declared sounded more like Low Dutch than decent French. Mr.
Molenschot laughed too, and intimated that "my hotel" had never been so
lively before.

"What now, Captain Kendall?" said Mr. Fluxion, when the supper and the
blunders had ended.

"My officers and crew wish to take a little walk," replied Paul.

"What! to-night?. It is after ten o'clock."

"They wish to see how 'Belgium's capital' looks