But otherwise they are quite agreeable. And to let you see that
I have not been deceiving you I will just give you a little sample, a
sort of index or list of names."
"Please do, Geert."
"For example, we have, not fifty paces from our house, and our gardens
are even adjoining, the master machinist and dredger Macpherson, a
real Scotchman and a Highlander."
"And he still wears the native costume?"
"No, thank heaven, he doesn't, for he is a shriveled up little man, of
whom neither his clan nor Walter Scott would be particularly proud.
And then we have, further, in the same house where this Macpherson
lives, an old surgeon by the name of Beza, in reality only a barber.
He comes from Lisbon, the same place that the famous general De Meza
comes from. Meza, Beza; you can hear the national relationship. And
then we have, up the river by the quay, where the ships lie, a
goldsmith by the name of Stedingk, who is descended from an old
Swedish family; indeed, I believe there are counts of the empire by
that name. Further, and with this man I will close for the present, we
have good old Dr. Hannemann, who of course is a Dane, and was a long
time in Iceland, has even written a book on the last eruption of
Hekla, or Krabla."
"Why, that is magnificent, Geert. It is like having six novels that
one can never finish reading. At first it sounds commonplace, but
afterward seems quite out of the ordinary. And then you must also have
people, simply because it is a seaport, who are not mere surgeons or
barbers or anything of the sort.
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