All this was said in very good English, with occasional lapses into French, in a soft, benevolent voice, with slow benedictory movements of the hands, more and more suggestive of an ecclesiastic en civile—­or under a cloud.  Strange stole an occasional glance into the delicate, clear-cut face, where the thin lips were compressed into permanent lines of pain, and the sunken brown eyes looked out from under scholarly brows with the kind of hopeful anguish a penitent soul might feel in the midst of purifying flames.  He remembered again that the flippant young Frenchman had said, “Un ancien curA(C), qui a fait quelque bAªtise.”  Was it possible that some tragic sin lay under this gentle life?  And was the four-funnelled, twin-screwed Parana but a ghostly ship bearing a cargo of haunted souls into their earthly purgatory?

“But listen, monsieur,” the old man began next day.  But listen!  There would be difficulties.  Stephens and Jarrott employed only picked men, men with some experience—­except for the mere manual labor such as the Italians could perform.  Wouldn’t it be well for Mr. Strange to qualify himself a little before risking a refusal?  Ah, but how?  Monsieur Durand would explain.  There was first the question of Spanish.  No one could get along in the Argentine without a working knowledge of that tongue.  Monsieur Durand himself gave lessons in it—­and in French—­but in the English and American colonies of Buenos Aires exclusively.  There were reasons why he did not care to teach among Catholics, though he himself was a fervent one, and he hoped—­repentant.  He pronounced the last word with some emphasis, as though to call Strange’s attention to it.  If his young friend would give him the pleasure of taking a few lessons, they could begin even now.  It would while away the time on the voyage.  He had his own method of teaching, a method based on the Berlitz system, but not borrowed from it, and, he ventured to say, possessing its own good points.  For example:  el tabaco—­la pipa—­los cigarillos.  Que es esto?  Esto es la pipa.  Very simple.  In a few weeks’ time the pupil is carrying on conversations.

It would be an incalculable advantage to Mr. Strange if he could enter on his Argentine life with some command of the vernacular.  It might even be well to defer his search for permanent employment until he could have that accomplishment to his credit.  If he possessed a little money—­even a very little—­Oh, he did?  Then so much the better.  He need not live on it entirely, but it would be something to fall back on while getting the rudiments of his education.  In the mean time he could learn a little about wool if he picked up jobs—­Oh, very humble ones!—­they were always to be had by the young and able-bodied—­at the Mercado Central, one of the great wool-markets of the world.  He could earn a few pesetas, acquire practical experience, and fit himself out in Spanish, all at the same time.