The silver messenger. (Challis, Idaho) 1890-1912, 1902-09-30
DIDN'T SPEAK DUTCH.

shoiu never uream OF going TO Europ
again-to any part of Europe, even includ
ing England-without having somebod,
along as an interpreter" said an amiabl
Mount Pleasant matron who recently re
turned from tour of the continent. "Sucl
dreadful time as we had, my husband anc
/, and he seemed to get crosser and NOR,
out of patience with the poor, uninstructec
folks who. couldn't speak English every mil,
that we traversed. We were in lots O.
places in England where we actual,
couldn't understand word the people said
although they were supposed to be speaking
English, and my poor dear of testy hus
band came near getting into fst1cuffs with
some of the restaurant folks and barber,
and tradespeople in Yorkshire because they
bridled up and seemed to be huffy when he
not being able to understand the patois tina
they believe is English, asked them why
they didn't speak the language of Their
king
But in the realy-and- truly foreign coun.
tries our difficulties were beyond belief
Neither of us knows word of any other
language but English. Now, |, being WON.
an, and therefore a reasoning being, ann
willing to concede that there are several
languages spoken on the globe besides Eng.
fish, and to admit the right of the people
who are born and raised to these languages
to speak them in their own lands. But my
husband, being a man, and man of ex.
clusively English speech, became more and
more ferocious over the languages of the
people as we progressed on the tour. 1t
didn't make any difference where we were,
whether in the Tyrol or by the Italian
lakes, he seemed to take it as a personal
affront when the people addressed him in
their own tongues, and he became even
more angry when he Inadvertently asked
one of them a question and received only a
shake of the head in reply
The internal imbecilesl' he was ex.
claiming to me all over Europe, how in the
dickens do they expect a white man to talk
such idiotic rubbish as that%
But | would expostulate, they are
talking the only language they know
Well, that's the reason l call 'em i'm.
beciles!' he would hotly retort.
But 1 would start to say, when he
would interrupt me with such an outbreak
IS this:
There are no ifs, ands and butts about
it; they talk like lot of monkeys-the
idea of man who talks English that's
fairly decent at any rate not being able to
get word of sense out of a single one of
about 100000 alleged human beings that
he's addressed necessary questions to all
over continent that's supposed to be
civilized!'
And there spoke the average American
man abroad, for all the world. I'll never
forget the morning we first arrived in Am
sterdam. We started out early to explore,
and my husband became more gloomy and
morose every step we took over the utter
inability of any of the people we met to
understand u.s. ! suppose the Dutch people
are the least accomplished linguists in Eu-
repeat least they struck us as being so.
We didn't strike a single individual in Am
sterdam that could speak English. Along
IN the afternoon we became hungry and de-
cided to hunt up some restaurant for lunch
con instead Of returning to the hotel. So
my husband began asking everybody we met
where there was good restaurant. They
all stared vacantly at him and shook their
heads with awful solemnity without a word
and passed on, many of them turning about
to look after us as if they considered us
escaped insane folks
Tn going to get one of these Dutch
balloons to give me some kind of an inteli-
gible reply to civil question if l have to
stay right here on the streets of Amster-
ooih III 1JOOO years! ne Sdlu 10 IlG, HOdTSelY,
and with such utter unreasonableness that
| couldn't for the life of me have helped
throwing my head back right there and
laughing at him-which didn't tend to in
crease his cheerfulness a particle, as you
may imagine.
Finally he went up to gendarme-one
OF those funny-looking little squatty male
persons with the exaggeratedly ferocious
awn &C
bawled in the astonished gendarme's teeth:
Say, my adipose friend of the Broad
way squad, can you and will you tell me
where | can find place in this burg where
two pilgrims can get a bite and sup of
something fit to eat and to drink
He asked this question, as / say, in an
exceedingly loud tone of voice. observed
that most travelling American men shouted
their questions at foreigners, as if mere
volume of lung power would suffice to
bridge the conversational gulf that yawns
two persons of different nationali-
ties who attempt to make themselves plain
to each other in their respective tongues.
The gendarme gazed at my husband with
He undoubtedly thought that
my husband was threatening him, and he
suddenly hoped back a couple of PAGES
A"N SofS a pSSuihi WHISTLE WHICH was I'M |
answered by a couple of other
yendarmes who came running around the |
corner from a schnapps shop where they |
had been RECALLING themselves. My poor
unreasonable husband wasn't bit taken |
back by their appearance, although began |
to have visions of him being hailed off to |
loisome dungeon, full of rats and bats and |
hings, and of my being compelled to go on |
my knees to the American minister at The |
Hague to have him released and of my |
friends in Washington reading of his being |
lrrested as a desperate character, and all |
hat sort of thing. / tried to pluck at his |
sleeve and to get him to come away, but
he put that inquiry as to the location of a
'estaurant to each of the other two gen
larmes in tone louder than he had en-
,loyed before, and shook his fist at them
When they pulled at their bristly little mus
achios and endeavored to look awe-inspir-
ng. 1t was a miracle that they didn't
eize upon him and arrest him, but they
ldnt. He is, as you know, six feet three
inches tall, and broad in proportion, where
S none of the three gendarmes was much
bove five feet in height, and that is per.
APPS the reason they decided to make no
tempt to modest him. However, they
mixed arms and stepped back about six
aces and shook their fists at him and said
ery cultural things in the Dutnb Iano,,ooo |