During the _melee_ M.Rubempre had tried to address the ruffians in broken French, for he did not for a moment forget his assumed character.
He used the same "pigeon-talk" to the consul, and Christy, in the little he said, adopted the same dialect.
"I see you are not Americans, my friends," said the official.
"No, saire; we are some Frenchmen," replied the detective, spreading out his two hands in a French gesture, and bowing very politely.
"Being Frenchmen, I am not a little surprised that you should have undertaken to defend me from this assault," added Mr.Alwayn.
"Ze Frenchman like, wat was this you call him, ze fair play; and ve could not prevent to put some fingers in tose pies.

Ver glad you was not have the head broke," replied M.Rubempre, with another native flourish.
"_Mais_, wat for de _canaille_ make ze war on you, saire?
You was certainment un gentleman ver respectable." Mr.Alwayn explained why he had incurred the hostility of the blockade-runners and their adherents, for he was sometimes compelled to protest against what he regarded as breaches of neutrality, and was obliged in the discharge of his duty to look after these people very closely, so that he was regarded as a spy.
"Oh! it was ze blockheads, was it ?" exclaimed the Frenchman.
"Hardly the blockheads," replied the consul, laughing at the blunder of the foreigner.

"It is the blockade-runners that make the trouble." "Blockade-runners! _Merci._ Was there much blockadeers here in ze islands ?" asked M.Rubempre, as though he was in total ignorance of the entire business of breaking the blockade.
"Thousands of them come here, for this is about the nearest neutral port to Wilmington, where many of this sort of craft run in." "Wilmington was in Delaware, where I have seen him on ze map." "No, sir; this Wilmington is in North Carolina.

If you look out on the waters of the harbor, half the vessels you see there are blockade-runners," added the consul.

"And there are more of them at St.
George's.