CHAPTER VII.
A GOSSIPY LETTER.
“Don’t talk any more about that grammar-book,” I interposed. “It’s all very well in its way, but it doesn’t account for half Jack’s adventures. Now I can let you into a secret. Please don’t look so apprehensive, O’Neill! As it happens, I had a descriptive letter from Enderby just about the time that Jack was making the most brilliant progress with his Dutch vocabulary. It gave me a vivid picture of what was going on in the Hague when this linguist of ours got really started to work.
O’NEILL AS A GUIDE.
Here are two of these long epistles. In the first he tells me all about the MacNamaras—Jack’s cousins, you know—who came across from Kilkenny, for a trip to Holland. They were at the Oude Doelen when he wrote, and our friend Jack was posing as a great Dutch scholar and showing them the sights.
(From Enderby to Cuey-na-Gael)
Doelen Hotel,
The Hague.
My dear Cuey-na-Gael,
You would be amazed to see the confidence with which O’Neill acts as guide to the MacNamaras.
MacNamara père is mostly buried in museums, or is on the hunt for archaeological papers, so Kathleen and Terence are left on Jack’s hands.
He has been everywhere with them, and has evidently impressed them with his astounding Dutch. To them it seems both correct and fluent. They have only had three days of it as yet, and haven’t had time to find him out. Kathleen is as haughty as ever; and I can see she chafes at being obliged to submit to the direction of a mere boy, as she regards Jack.
She was furious the day before yesterday, when in passing through one of the back streets he asked her if she had ever noticed what the Dutch Government printed in front of the surgeries.