Whom am I
dealing with exactly? However, I summon my courage and speak
aloud the first word that occurs to me, the name of the hotel at
which I am staying: Weidenhof. At first, Muhamed, who seems a
little puzzled by his master's absence, appears not to hear me
and does not even deign to notice that I am there. But I repeat
eagerly, in varying tones of voice, by turns insinuating,
threatening, beseeching and commanding:
"Weidenhof! Weidenhof! Weidenhof!"
At last, my mysterious companion suddenly makes up his mind to
lend me his ears and straightway blithely raps out the following
letters, which I write down on the black-board as they come:
WEIDNHOZ.
It is a magnificent specimen of equine spelling! Triumphant and
bewildered, I call in friend Krall, who, accustomed as he is to
the prodigy, thinks it quite natural, but knits his brows:
"What's this, Muhamed? You've made a mistake again. It's an F you
want at the end of the word, not a Z. Just correct it at once,
please."
And the docile Muhamed, recognizing his blunder, gives the three
blows with his right hoof, followed by the four blows with his
left, which represent the most unexceptionable F that one could
ask for.
Observe, by the way, the logic of his phonetic writing: contrary
to his habit, he strikes the mute E after the W, because it is
indispensable; but, finding it included in the D, he considers it
superfluous and suppresses it with a high hand.
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