The Worcester spy. [volume] (Worcester, Mass.) 1898-1904, 1899-08-12
INTERPRETER sTUMPED.
None of Them Gould Understand Jar
gon of the Bowery.

gon of the Bowery.
"a mysterious steerage passenger
turned up at the New York barge office
the other day." said a treasury de-
partment agent, in the Washington
Star. "IIe arrived with big batch Of
German immigrants on one of the Bre-
men steamers. He didn't look like a
German, though, nor, although ms
makeup was pretty rough, did he look
| like the conventional German immi-
grant in his dress. When it came his
turn to put through the usual ques-
lions as to whore he was going, wheth-
er he had enough money on him to IN
sure him from becoming public charge
and all that sort of thing, the German
interpreter tackled him. The man
| looked at the interpreter out of his
| twinkling blue eyes, but stood mute.
The German gesticulated and spat out
Plattdeutsch for five minutes, but the
| low browed immigrant only grinned at
him and sucked on an old briar-wood
pipe.
bod Won ain'd no Choiman,' said
the interpreter finally TO the immigra-
tiop official.
grafton man.
81 oop-pass it, nod? said the inter
prefer. Maybe he's Frenge.'
" Tackle him in that, then said the
immigration official, and the German
interpreter went at the mysterious chap
with a very Teutonic- sounding bunch
of the language of Gaul.
THE mysterious immigrant sat down
on a box cleaned out his pipe, and
grinned.
He nod oonderstand,' said the in
terpreter
"What the dickens is he, anyhow?
said the immigration man, scratching
his head. Don't look like a Spaniard
or an Italian. May be he's a Bulgarian,
or something like that. Or a Turk.
Get the Turk spieler and see if he can't
dig something out of this cuss.'
The Turkish interpreter came up,
and he tackled the mysterious propo-
sition from the Bremen ship in the
whole bundle of LIMOGES from that Sec
tion-Algerian, Ro1manian, dialects of
the Balkan provinces, Hungarian. all
the Magyar spiels Beloochistan, Turk
estanese, all the 'eses' and 'stans-and
the immigrant Whitfield the caking out
of his pipe and looked at 'em all pleas
antly, but said never a word.
Then the Scandinavian interpreter
took hand, and tried him in Norwe-
SAetAAf oNNNAJGll anu OdiiiSilt lllIOM1IlS III
a few in Finnish and Laplandese, but
it was no go The Swiss dragoman
heaved in sight and he tried one or
two, but the mystery just looked him
over from his collar to his shoes, took
a hitch in his trousers and grinned some
more. The small hoy who sweeps out
the pen whistled, You're up against the
real thing now and the immigration
man mopped his forehead.
This gets me going said he He's
not a Hindu, nor a Hottentot, nor a
Zulu-what the deuce can he be? Hey
there, Bill, where in the name of poly
glottery do you hail from, anyhow?
'Wot tells de matter wit youse
people, anyhow? said the mystery,
looking the whole crowd of Interpreters
over with infinite contempt oT'rowin'
yer ginny talk into guy wot was born
and dubbed up on Cherry Hill-ye
make me face ache
Then he mildly reproached the inn
migration man for not 'givin' him de
straight spiel in de foist place, and
told him that he was a deep-water sail
or from New York, and had been paid
off from his last voyage in Bremen,
where he embarked per steerage for
his country He was passed in a
hurry, and now they're trying plain old
English first on all immigrants whose
nationality doesn't stick out all over
EN-