Then you could only just get along in Spanish.

Now you are chattering away in it as if you had never spoken anything else, all your life." "Well, you see, Dick, I knew just enough, when I was taken prisoner, to be able to, as you say, get along in it; and that made all the difference to me.

If I had known nothing at all of it, I should not have been able to benefit by my trip with the muleteers in Spain.

As it was, I was able to talk with them and, as we rode side by side all day; and sat together by a fire for hours, after we had halted when the day's journey was over, we did a tremendous lot of talking; and as you see, I came out, at the end of the month, able to get along really fluently.

I, no doubt, make a good many mistakes, and mix a good many Portuguese words with my Spanish; but that does not matter in the least, so long as one is with friends; although it would matter a good deal if I were trying to pass as a Spaniard, among people who might betray me if they found out that I was English.
"I see that you have improved in Portuguese almost as much as I have in Spanish.