German. Ah! mein Gott!—Alway Ich make mistake: I vou'd have said—(beginning again with the same solemnity of tone)—since dat Mein Herr X., late your man, hav—hopped de twig—(which words he screamed out with delight, certain that he had now hit the nail upon the head).
Widow. Upon my word, Sir, I am at a loss to understand you: 'Kicked the bucket,' and 'hopped the twig——!'
German. (Perspiring with panic.) Ah, Madam! von—two—tree—ten tousand pardon: vat sad, wicket dictionary I haaf, dat alway bring me in trouble: but now you shall hear—(and then, recomposing himself solemnly for a third effort, he began as before)—Madam, since I did hear, or wash hearing, dat Mein Herr X., late your man, haaf—(with a triumphant shout) haaf, I say, gone to Davy's locker——
Further he would have gone; but the widow could stand no more: this nautical phrase, familiar to the streets of Bristol, allowed her no longer to misunderstand his meaning; and she quitted the room in a tumult of laughter, sending a servant to show her unfortunate suitor out of the house, with his false friend the dictionary; whose help he might, perhaps, invoke for the last time, on making his exit, in the curses—'Udswoggers, Boblikins, Bublikins, Splitterkins!'
N.B. As test words for trying a modern German dictionary, I will advise the student to look for the words—Beschwichtigen Kulisse, and Mansarde. The last is originally French, but the first is a true German word; and, on a question arising about its etymology, at the house of a gentleman in Edinburgh, could not be found in any one, out of five or six modern Anglo-German dictionaries.
THE END.
Richard Clay & Sons, Limited,
London & Bungay.