Then in dumb show I wrote with an imaginary pen on an imaginary piece of paper, saying very distinctly, “poent!” “spits!” “poent!” A light seemed suddenly to dawn upon him; he went to a drawer and brought out crayons and pencils, and reached me a stumper,—one of those soft pointed things for rubbing in mountains and clouds, on a pencil sketch. It was such a surprise after the fishing rod that I involuntarily exclaimed, “Hallo! a stumper!” Well, as that harmless English term seemed to ruffle him somewhat, I hurried to my next word. This word by the way I had written twice, having misspelled it the first time. Now as I stooped down to make it out, my nautical friend, whose interest in me had never flagged, read it before me: “Swavel! mynheer wou swavel.”
SNAVEL—NOT SWAVEL.
“Hoeveel?” said the shopman impatiently.
“Voor dit,” I replied, putting down a five-penny piece.
He mumbled something about swavel to a message-boy, who forthwith left the shop; and I sat down to wait. It was a vast relief to cease speaking Dutch for a few minutes; and yet I felt uneasily conscious that there was a mistake somewhere. The shop was filled with pens, so that if I was really buying pens now—as I hoped I was—there was no need for the message-boy to go elsewhere.
On calmly examining my notes I detected the error. The sailor had read the word in the first rough draft instead of the corrected copy. I started up hurriedly and went to the counter through the crowd.
“Duizendmaal vergiffenis!” I said. “Verschoon my. Ik veroorzaak U veel moeite.”
“Ja mynheer,” he replied patiently.
“Niet zwavel hier,” I said, pointing to my paper. ‘I have drawn my pencil through it,’ I wanted to say, but of course couldn’t. Then a happy thought struck me. Say I have a line through it—streepje is the grammar word for a little line.