High Dutch

It was evening: and myself and the two acquaintances I had made in the fair — namely, the jockey and the tall foreigner — sat in a large upstairs room, which looked into a court; we had dined with several people connected with the fair at a long table d’hote; they had now departed, and we sat at a small side-table with wine and a candle before us; both my companions had pipes in their mouths — the jockey a common pipe, and the foreigner, one, the syphon of which made of some kind of wood, was at least six feet long, and the bowl of which, made of a white kind of substance like porcelain, and capable of holding nearly an ounce of tobacco, rested on the ground. The jockey frequently emptied and replenished his glass; the foreigner sometimes raised his to his lips, for no other purpose seemingly than to moisten them, as he never drained his glass. As for myself, though I did not smoke, I had a glass before me, from which I sometimes took a sip. The room, notwithstanding the window was flung open, was in general so filled with smoke, chiefly that which was drawn from the huge bowl of the foreigner, that my companions and I were frequently concealed from each other’s eyes. The conversation, which related entirely to the events of the fair, was carried on by the jockey and myself, the foreigner, who appeared to understand the greater part of what we said, occasionally putting in a few observations in broken English. At length the jockey, after the other had made some ineffectual attempts to express something intelligibly which he wished to say, observed: ‘Isn’t it a pity that so fine a fellow as meinheer, and so clever a fellow too, as I believe him to be, is not a little better master of our language?’

‘Is the gentleman a German?’ said I; ‘if so I can interpret for him anything he wishes to say.’

‘The deuce you can,’ said the jockey, taking his pipe out of his mouth, and staring at me through the smoke.

‘Ha! you speak German,’ vociferated the foreigner in that language. ‘By Isten, I am glad of it! I wanted to say —’ And here he said in German what he wished to say, and which was of no great importance, and which I translated into English.

‘Well, if you don’t put me out,’ said the jockey; ‘what language is that — Dutch?’

‘High Dutch,’ said I.

‘High Dutch, and you speak High Dutch; why I had booked you for as great an ignoramus as myself, who can’t wr............