“Didn’t I warn you”, he grumbled, “against those horrid expressions that you seem so fond of? You must really take care, O’Neill,—or I won’t speak to you as long as you stay in Holland.”
It was useless to assure him that I had referred to the ‘lightning-conductor’ merely in its permissible and scientific sense. He would listen to no explanations. “You simply can’t imagine how shocking all that talk of yours sounds, or you wouldn’t attempt to justify your vulgarity.”
“Begging your lordship’s pardon”, I retorted ironically, “for all my unseemly conduct, may I enquire humbly what the dignified term is? Onweersconducteur, perhaps? Or weerlichtsconducteur?”
“Nonsense!” he almost shouted. “The thing’s quite easy—‘bliksemafleider’.”
A CHARMING WALK.
“Aha,” I could not help retorting, “you see after all you are in the wrong. You warned me against lightning—quite needlessly, you now admit—but you never said a syllable about that really dangerous word conductor.”
But to return to my trip that lovely morning. The tram duly reached ‘Simplex’, and the conductor was unfeignedly relieved to see me alight.
It was perfect weather, and my annoyances were soon forgotten. There was such a shimmer and haze and play of light over the wide landscape as I have seen only in Holland.
I was delighted. Such a scene is an inspiration. It makes one wish to be a painter or a poet or something. Subtle and delicate shades varied the long stretches of green meadow; clumps of trees, church towers, tiny red-roofed villages dotted the landscape; while here and there as far as the eye could reach, wide canals—the very pictures of tranquillity—reflected the great white clouds sailing overhead.