"Mag ik zoo vrij zijn, Klabak?" I murmured courteously, showing him my copy of the placard on the door, "Mijnheer Hiernaast--ziet u--_waar_ woont _hij_?"
Well, he couldn't have been more astonished if had reached him a lighted bombshell.
Instead of meeting me with that ready sympathy I had been reckoning upon, he was quite stiff. I however persisted courteously with my question, "Ja, Openbare! wat zegt U, Smeeris? Woont mijnheer Hiernaast in deze straat?"
Well, he wasn't a bit polite; or if he was, he must have been singularly deficient in charm of manner, for he stared quite insolently at me and grumbled, "Woujeme voor de gek houe?"
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.'
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.