"But," objected the First Year's Man, "it doesn't seem to hang together, for you said just now--"
"No debating allowed," growled the Philosopher.
"Hurry up, O'Neill, with those general principles."
"Oh, that's all of them," said Jack, "all at present." "Well, to resume my story, I picked out the most harmless of the _have you's_, and was proceeding to work out the formula for 'Have you pens,' when to my consternation my eye fell on a dreadful warning, a kind of threat.
_N.B. Important!--The foreigner is distinctly given to understand that he must commit to memory some polite phrases before engaging in conversation (see page 201) and study the chief sentences of a good phrase book. All pronouns savouring of familiarity are to be carefully avoided._
A SUSPICIOUS POLICEMAN.--DUIZENDMAAL VERGIFFENIS.--DAT IK OP UW TEEN HEB GETRAPT.
You may be sure that made me rather diffident till I had mastered some of these 'polite phrases'. Polite they were, and no mistake--why French was nothing to it!--and I got the very nicest of them well into my head. I went round to Enderby's, and he put me on the way of pronouncing the words. Then I took a whole morning in Het Bosch and recited them to myself aloud. When no one was in sight I allowed myself some freedom of utterance; and once I thought I must have startled with my _ore rotundo_ an artist who was plying his harmless calling unseen behind a clump of trees. At least some one retired very hastily after I had delivered, "Doe zooveel moeite niet", three times with a vigorous rising inflection and four times with the falling inflection, followed in each case by the rhetorical pause. From the deserted easel I judged it must have been an artist. He withdrew at a good pace, and never once looked back.
These and similar polite idioms I repeated over some hundreds of times, till I knew them backwards and forwards and every way, and could have rattled them off in my sleep. Then there was some difficulty in avoiding the policemen in the wood. They kept prowling about after I had incautiously experimented on the first one with, "Mynheer! ik wensch U goeden morgen; ik hoop dat ik U niet stoor. Vaarwel." He had looked amazed at this; so, as a parting shot--a sort of courteous Good Bye--I added gaily, "Ik bid U maak geen complimenten." It was this that made the trouble, as he looked distinctly displeased, not to say suspicious. When he heard the words first, he had stood speechless, transfixed. Then he followed me home and hung about the street--I could see him from my window--for over half an hour. I feared my pronouns had been too familiar, though I couldn't see how to change them, for there they were in the book. On the whole I concluded I had been a trifle abrupt, and with renewed vigour I set to and committed a host of apologetic phrases such as: "Ik bid U verschoon mij. Duizendmaal vergiffenis. Het heeft niets te beduiden." A pretty little triplet caught my ear and I took rather a fancy to it: "Het geeft niets--het hindert niet--het komt er niet op aan."