family?"--"No, Scotch."--"You are sure that there was never an Irishman
in your parents?"--"So far as I know," I said, "there never was an
Irishman there."--"Perhaps a hundred years back?" he insisted.--"Not a
chance," I said decisively. But Monsieur was not to be denied: "Your name
it is Irish?"--"Cummings is a very old Scotch name," I told him fluently,
"it used to be Comyn. A Scotchman named The Red Comyn was killed by
Robert Bruce in a church. He was my ancestor and a very well-known
man."--"But your second name, where have you got that?"--"From an
Englishman, a friend of my father." This statement seemed to produce a
very favorable impression in the case of the rosette, who murmured: "_Un
ami de son pere, un Anglais, bon!_" several times. Monsieur, quite
evidently disappointed, told the moustache in French to write down that I
denied my Irish parentage; which the moustache did.

"What does your father in America?"--"He is a minister of the gospel," I
answered. "Which church?"--"Unitarian." This puzzled him. After a moment
he had an inspiration: "That is the same as a Free Thinker?"--I explained
in French that it wasn't and that _mon pere_ was a holy man. At last
Monsieur told the moustache to write: Protestant; and the moustache
obediently did so.

From this point on our conversation was carried on in French, somewhat to
the chagrin of Monsieur, but to the joy of the rosette and with the
approval of the moustache. In answer to questions, I informed them that I
was a student for five years at Harvard (expressing great surprise that
they had never heard of Harvard), that I had come to New York and studied
painting, that I had enlisted in New York as _conducteur voluntaire_,
embarking for France shortly after, about the middle of April.

Monsieur asked: "You met B---- on the _paquebot_?" I said I did.