orrespondents of the
American Civil War, in that they had not the difficulties of outlandish
tongues to contend with. I own myself to be a poor linguist, and have
many and many a time suffered for my dullness of what the Scotch call
"up-take." It is true that I was fairly conversant with French and
German, and could express my wants in Russian, Roumanian, Bulgarian,
Spanish, Turkish, Hindustanee, Pushtoo, and Burmese, every word of which
smatterings I have long since forgotten. But the truth is that the
poorest peoples in the world in acquiring foreign languages are the
English and the French; the readiest are the Russians and Americans. It
was, after a fashion, a liberal education to listen to the fluency in
some half-dozen languages of Poor McGahan, the "Ohio boy," who graduated
from the plough to be perhaps the most brilliant war correspondent of
modern times. His compatriot and colleague, Frank Millet, who has fallen
away from glory as a war correspondent, and has taken to the inferior
trade of painting, seemed to pick up a language by the mere accident of
finding himself on the soil where it was spoken. In the first three
days, after crossing the Danube into Bulgaria, Millet went about with
book in hand, gathering in the names of things at which he pointed, and
jotting down each acquisition in the book. On the fourth day he could
swear in Bulgarian, copiously, fervently, and with a measure of
intelligibility. Within a week he had conquered the uncouth tongue. As
he voyaged lately down the Danube from source to mouth, charmingly
describing the scenic panorama of the great river in the pages of
_Harper_, those of you who have read those sketches will not have failed
to notice how Millet talked to German, Hungarian, Servian, Bulgarian,
Roumanian, and Turkish, each in his own tongue, those diverse languages
having been acquired by him during the few months of the
Russo-Turkish war.

[Illustration: "MACGAHAN AND FRANK MILLET."]

By this time, you may be wondering just where "Andreas" comes in.
Perhaps I have been over long in getting to my specific subject; but I
will not be discursive any more. It was at the _table d'hote_ in the
Serbische Krone Hotel, in Belgrade, where I first set eyes on Andreas.
In the year 1876, Servia had thought proper to throw off the yoke of her
Turkish suzerain, and to attempt to assert her independence by force of
arms. But for very irregularly paid tribute she was virtually
independent al