VÓÓR DEN HEKHOUDER.
Woujeme, gekhoue? Didn’t I know some of those words?
On considering this utterance of his I seemed to recognise “woujeme” as an old friend. Wasn’t that the introductory particle that was not in the dictionary and which resembled the Latin ‘nonne’? Then ‘gek’ was remarkably like ‘hek’, which I knew to be ‘gate’.
The landlady had always been talking about the ‘hek’ being open,—a state of affairs which she strongly objected to, because dogs were in the habit of strolling in and looking rudely at her through the kitchen window.
Now I knew that it would be the easiest thing in life for ‘gek’ to be mistaken for ‘hek’.
London policemen often drop h’s in one place and put them in at another. Why shouldn’t a Hague policeman do something similar? You could hardly expect a policeman to speak the language with absolute accuracy.
So ‘gek houwe’ would probably be a common provincialism for ‘hek houden’. And I could easily guess, on the analogy of ‘stalhouwer’, what hekhouwer’ would mean. It would be, no doubt, a ‘man that made and sold gates’. ‘Vóór den gekhouwe(r)’ would then be, as nearly as possible, the idiom for ‘in front of the gate factory.’
MAAR—WAAR WOONT HIJ?
There was no gate factory in sight, so I continued pleasantly making further enquiries of the policeman: “Voor den gekhouwer?—ja zeker! asjeblieft! Maar—zoudt gy zoo goed willen zijn—mij mede te deelen,—waar woont die gekhouder? Woont hij in deze straat? De gekkefabriek—waar is dat?”
I really pitied him, he looked so overwhelmed. Then he did something wonderful that stayed all further parley. He turned his head away, spread out both white-gloved hands, raised his shoulders slowly till they were well up over his ears, then slowly let them down again to their normal and natural position,—and all this without glancing at me.