I can interpret for him
anything he wishes to say."

"The deuce you can," said the jockey, taking his pipe out of his mouth,
and staring at me through the smoke.

"Ha! you speak German," vociferated the foreigner in that language. "By
Isten, I am glad of it! I wanted to say--" And here he said in German
what he wished to say, and which was of no great importance, and which I
translated into English.

"Well, if you don't put me out," said the jockey; "what language is
that--Dutch?"

"High Dutch," said I.

"High Dutch, and you speak High Dutch,--why, I had booked you for as
great an ignoramus as myself, who can't write--no, nor distinguish in a
book a great A from a bull's foot."

"A person may be a very clever man," said I--"no, not a clever man, for
clever signifies clerkly, and a clever man one who is able to read and
write, and entitled to the benefit of his clergy or clerkship; but a
person may be a very acute person without being able to read or write. I
never saw a more acute countenance than your own."

"No soft soap," said the jockey, "for I never uses any. However, thank
you for your information; I have hitherto thought myself a'nition clever
fellow, but from henceforth shall consider myself just the contrary, and
only--what's the word?--confounded 'cute."

"Just so," said I.

"Well," said the jockey, "as you say you can speak High Dutch, I should
like to hear you and master six foot six fire away at each other."

"I cannot speak German," said I, "but I can understand tolerably well
what others say in it."

"Come no backing out," said the jockey, "let's hear you fire away for the
glory of Old England."

"Then you are a German?" said I, in German to the foreigner.

"That will do," said the jockey, "keep it up."

"A German!" said the tall foreigner. "No, I thank God that I do not
belong to the stupid sluggish Germanic race, but to a braver, taller, and
handsomer people;" here taking the pipe out of his mouth, he stood up
proudly erect, so that his head nearly touched the ceiling of the room,
then reseating himself, and again putting the syphon to his lips, he
added, "I am a Magyar."

"What is that?" said I.

The foreigner looked at me for a moment, somewhat contemptuously, through
the smoke, then said, in a voice of thunder, "A Hungarian!"

"What a voice the chap has when he pleases!" interposed the jockey; "what
is he saying?"

"Merely that he is a Hungarian," said I; but I added, "