Achmed Abdullah

“ CHAPTER XI THE WIRELESS Holding on to one of the life-boats just the other side of the wireless operator's hut on top deck, braced against the pitch and roll with straddled feet and standing aslant when the gathering wind came in fits and starts, Tom Graves looked out into the west, where the sun had died in a flat disc of unhealthy, decayed brown to give way to a dense bank of olive-tinted cloud that rushed down with the speed of a stage drop, lay motionless upon the sea that was like dirty oil, suddenly changing into a slow, immense roll that sent the ship down a slope and up again. ”

“ Then the short ride to Bremen itself, through a wedge-shaped stretch of rolling fields with plump Holstein cattle that looked ridiculously small and ridiculously tame to Tom's range sense, and through a sweep of box-like suburban houses, each framed by a bit of lawn that was almost English in its moist, pristine greenness. ”

“ Taught me German ..."
"And French?"
"Rather!"
"And a few more assorted lingoes?" suggested Tom dryly.
Vyvyan looked up quickly. But Tom was a poker player. There was no twinkle in his eyes, only an honest question, and the Englishman said that "Yes!" He had quite a few languages at his command.
"But keep it under your hat," he added. "I, well, you wouldn't understand, being an American. But we Englishmen, Englishmen like me, y know ... have the devil's own horror of being thought clever or gifted. Not that I am clever," he wound up hurriedly. ”