"Well, the governor made a long speech to him, read him a chapter in
the Bible, and then expounded it, and told him they must put him in
the stocks. All this time the Dutchman went on smoking, and blowing
out great long puffs of tobacco. At last he paused, and said:
"'You be tamned. Stockum me--stockum teivel.' And he laid down his
pipe, and with one hand took hold of their governor by the fore-top,
and with the other drew a line across his forehead and said, 'Den I
declare war, and Gooten Himmel! I shall scalp you all.'
"After delivering himself of that long speech, he poured out two
glasses of Schiedam, drunk one himself, and offered the Yankee
governor the other, who objected to the word Schiedam, as it
terminated in a profane oath, with which, he said, the Dutch language
was greatly defiled; but seeing it was also called Geneva, he would
swallow it. Well, his high mightiness didn't understand him, but he
opened his eyes like an owl and stared, and said, 'Dat is tam coot,'
and the conference broke up.
"Well, it was the first visit of the Dutch governor, and they hoped it
would be the last, so they passed it over. But his business was
important, and it occupied him the whole week to settle it, and he
took his leave on Saturday evening, and was to set out for home on
Sunday again. Well, this was considered as adding insult to injury.
What was to be done? Now it's very easy and very proper for us to sit
down and condemn the Duke of Tuscany, who encourages pilgrims to go to
shrines where marble statues weep blood, and cataliptic galls let
flies walk over their eyes without winking, and yet imprisons an
English lady for giving away the 'Pilgrim's Progress.
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