"Dat is pitty; for I have been for shome toime past in Ingerlaand, but I not learn ze langwage. Ze Ingerleesh varry difficolt."
"You seemed," I replied, "to have overcome that difficulty, and you speak it with a pretty good accent."
"No, Zare, you varry goot to say so; but I feel I can at all not—at all not,—qu'est que veut dire, 'exprimer?'—ach! ach!" he exclaimed, putting his finger in his mouth, and pressing it, meditatively, between his front teeth, "I can at all not speak moin feeling in ze vay I shoult vish."
"How long were you in England?" I said.
"En fjor—une année," he replied.
"If then, Sir," I went on, "after being one year in Denmark, I can speak the language so correctly as you do the English, I should think myself no deficient scholar."
"Oh! Zare, you too goot. I am not Dane, zough; I am from Sweden—ffrān Svenska landet; but I come to Kjobenhagen for ze painting. Zare," he said, turning round, and looking from stem to stern, and from the burgee at the top-mast head to the brass belaying pins, "dish Engelskt skepp varry—ach! ach!" again he exclaimed, stamping his foot and thrusting his finger in his mouth, "fy!—vat you call 'skönt'?"
"Fine, beautiful," I said, assistingly.
"Ja; jag tackar. Det är skönt!" he exclaimed to his companion, who bowed in assent, and observed in the Swedish tongue,
"Det ser ut som en fregatt;" which, being interpreted, meant that the yacht was like a frigate.