He found Little Billee sitting in a zinc hip-bath, busy with soap and sponge; and was so tickled and interested by the sight that he quite forgot for the moment what he had come for.
“Himmel! Why the devil are you doing that?” he asked, in his German-Hebrew-French.
“Doing what?” asked Little Billee, in his French of Stratford-atte-Bowe.
“Sitting in water and playing with a cake of soap and a sponge!”
“Why, to try and get myself clean, I suppose!”
“Ach! And how the devil did you get yourself dirty, then?”
To this Little Billee found no immediate answer, and went on with his ablution after the hissing, splashing, energetic fashion of Englishmen; and Svengali laughed loud and long at the spectacle of a little Englishman trying to get himself clean—”tâchant de se nettoyer!”
When such cl
