At length the jockey, after the other had made some ineffectual attempts to express something intelligibly which he wished to say, observed, "Isn't it a pity that so fine a fellow as meinheer, and so clever a fellow too, as I believe him to be, is not a little better master of our language ?" "Is the gentleman a German ?" said I; "if so, 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.