The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1905-11-26

to talk. The humorist hadn't a joke
in him. The artist could not have
drawn his own salary. He would have
dropped it on the way to his pocket.
The Dutch roads are paved their entire
length with cobbles-big, round cob
bles, over which your bicycle leaps and
springs and plungeS. If you would see
Holland outside the big towns a snat-
tering Of Dutch is necessary. If you
know German there is not much diff
Guilty. Dutch speak as an amateur
appears to be very bad German, mis-
pronounced. Myself find my German
goes well in Holland, even better than
in Germany. The Anglo-SaxOn should
not attempt the Dutch G. 1t is hope
less to think of succeeding and the at
tempt has been known to produce in
ternal rupture. The Dutchman ap-
pears to keep his G in his stomach,
self I find the ordinary G preceded by
a hiccough and followed by a sob, the
nearest I can get to it. But they tell
me it is not quite right yet. One needs
to save up beforehand if one desires
to spend any length of time in Hol-
land. One talks of dear old England,
but the dearest land in all the world is
little Holland. The form there Is equal
to the franc in France and to the sh1Il-
ing in England. They tell you that cl-
CARS are cheap in Holland. A cheap
Dutch cigar will last you a day. 1t is
not until you have forgotten the taste
of it that you feel you ever want to
smoke again. I knew a man who reck-
oned he had saved hundreds of pounds
by smoking Dutch cigars for a month
steadily. It was years before he
smoked again. Watching building OPP
erations in Holland brings home to you
forcibly what previously you have re-
garded as a meaningless formula, name-
ly, that the country is built upon piles.
A dozen feet below the level of the
street one sees the laborers working IN
fisherman's boots up to their knees IN
water, driving the great wooden blocks
into the mud. Many OF the older
houses slope forward at such an angle
that you almost fear to pass beneath
them. I should be as nervous as a kit
ten living in one of the upper stories
But the Dutchman leans out of a win
dow that is hanging above the street
six feet beyond the perpendicular, an d
smokes contentedly- They nave a
merry custom in Holland OF keeping
the railway time twenty minutes ahead
of the town time-or is it twenty min
utes behind? I can never remember
when I'm there and am not sure now.
The Dutchman himself never knows.
You've plenty of time" he says. SUI
the train goes at ten" you say, the
station is a mile away, and it IS now
half mast nine" Eyes, but that means
ten twenty" he answers, you have
nearly an hour. Five minutes Ialer
he taps YOU on the shoulder. My mis-
take. it's twenty to ten. was think
ing it was the other way about" An
other argues with him that his first
idea was right. They work it out by
scientific methods. Meanwhile, you
have Owed into a cab. The result is
always the same; you are either forty
minutes too soon, or you have missed
the train by twenty minutes. A Dutch
platform is always crowded with wo-
men explaining volubly to their nus
hands either that there was not any
need to have hurried, or else that the
thing would have been to have started
half an hour before they did, the man
in both cases being, of course, to blame.
The men walk up and down and
swear. The idea has been suggested
that the railway time and the town
time should be made to conform. The
argument against. the idea is that if it
were carried out then there would be
nothing left to put the Dutchman out
and worry him.