"Esker vous... Pourquoi vous ne... I mean ne vous... that is to say,
quel est le raison..."

He broke off here, because at this point Jules began to explain. He
explained very rapidly and at considerable length. The fact that neither
of his hearers understood a word of what he was saying appeared not to
have impressed itself upon him. Or, if he gave a thought to it, he
dismissed the objection as trifling. He wanted to explain, and he
explained. Words rushed from him like water from a geyser. Sounds which
you felt you would have been able to put a meaning to if he had detached
them from the main body and repeated them slowly, went swirling down the
stream and were lost for ever.

"Stop him!" said Sally firmly.

The red-haired young man looked as a native of Johnstown might have
looked on being requested to stop that city's celebrated flood.

"Stop him?"

"Yes. Blow a whistle or something."

Out of the depths of the young man's memory there swam to the surface a
single word--a word which he must have heard somewhere or read
somewhere: a legacy, perhaps, from long-vanished school-days.

"Zut!" he barked, and instantaneously Jules turned himself off at the
main. There was a moment of dazed silence, such as might occur in a
boiler-factory if the works suddenly shut down.