Chapter VII: Introduction (6)

Suddenly Bloemstein heard the steps of his wife and daughter, who were coming to see what the noise was. Fearing that they might come in for this unseemly spectacle, he thrust the intruder into the next room, with the words, “There; you’ll find some trousers in there; just put them on in the meantime.”

Not long after, Hermes appeared in a garment much too short for him, which, however, by way of compensation, was also a great deal too wide.

The assembly was now able to finish its deliberations in peace and quiet. The portraits having been unanimously approved of, No. 2 of the Agenda came up for discussion. This was, “Declaration of war against Holland on the ground of high treason.” The debate was lively and confused.

Bauer wanted to summon his men at once, surprise Maastricht the same night, take the garrison prisoners, and march farther into the country.

Conrads, on the other hand, could see no good in such incautious haste. “Let’s wait till we get the corn in; then we can bake bread for our men through the war.”

“No need of that!” shouted Bauer. “We’ll get all the bread we want from the Dutch.”

Holzert was inclined to agree with Conrads, but for other reasons. “We must ask for explanations first; that’s always the way,” he declared. “We ought to give them time to investigate the outrage committed on our president, and make their apologies. Besides that,” he added, “till we have stamps of our own we can’t declare war.”

“That’s true, that’s true!” cried several voices, “it would never do to declare war on Holland with Prussian stamps.”

“Very well, then,” raged Bauer, “but you must get them made directly, Bloemstein!”

“I’ll promise that,” replied the President.

Herewith the solemn session concluded.

A few weeks later the longed-for stamps appeared. They looked neat enough. A striking likeness of Bloemstein was surrounded by a garland of intertwined spades and pickaxes—symbols of labour—and above, in good bold letters, ALTENET.

There were blue, red, and green ones—of one, two, and three groschen respectively.

“Marieke! Marieke!” cried the delighted Bloemstein. “Come here, child; I’ve something to show you. What do you think of that?”

“Oh, quite beautiful, father!”

“Really, child?”

“And will they be sent to all the kings and emperors—all in the whole world?”

“All in the whole world.”

“To Bismarck too?”

“He’s going to get one as well; but it won’t please him, I assure you, Marieke.”

“Now you’ll need to send them off at once; may I help you to put the stamps on?”

“Surely, Marieke.”

The father and daughter sat down before the table, on which lay the long row of already written letters.

“Here’s Bismarck’s!” cried the girl suddenly.

“Put double stamps on that,” said Bloemstein.

Instead of obeying this order, Marieke contrived to slip the letter into her pocket.

“Shall I take them to the post-office now, father?”

“Yes, do, child—only mind you don’t lose any, specially the one to Bismarck.”

“You needn’t be afraid,” and she skipped out of the room to fetch her hat, and perhaps also the letter she had received from her _fiancé_.

It was not long before an answer came from Berlin.

Bloemstein summoned his faithful councillors at once, in order to open the official document in their midst. The ministers hastened to the council-chamber, as fast as their legs could carry them. They took up positions behind their President, and stuck their heads together, trying to see with their own eyes the answer from the German Empire.

With trembling hand Bloemstein opened the missive, and in a voice quivering with emotion, he began to read, in German:—

“_Verehrter Herr Präsident._

“In reply to your letter, I have received orders from my Emperor to
declare war on your Republic, and send off an army of 150,000 men to
the frontier, because—

“1. You have caused postage-stamps to be made without permission from
the German Government.

“2. It is known to us that you have been taking upon yourself to
oppose your daughter’s marriage to our loyal subject, Dr Heinrich
Olthausen.

“3. You want to force that charming and lovely girl to marry an
objectionable, crooked tailor.

“We give you a week to comply with our conditions.

“BISMARCK.”

There was a moment’s painful silence. There it was, in great fat round letters—“BISMARCK.” There was no possible doubt about it.

“DECLARE WAR!”
]

“The confounded low _Schwerenöther_ of a Prussian!” yelled Holzert at last, crimson with passion, and quivering on his little bow-legs. “Declare war, Bloemstein! declare war!” he went on. “Let them come, the low _canaille!_ we’ll blow up the mine as soon as they get on top of it, and then there’ll be an end of them!” and suddenly turning to the Minister of War, he added, “Bauer, how many men have you?”

“HASTENED TO THE COUNCIL-CHAMBER.”
]

“A hundred and twenty-three, counting the band,” was the answer.

“That’s not one to a thousand,” suggested Conrads; “and besides that, we’ve got the war with Holland on our hands,—it won’t do—it won’t do! What do you think yourself, Bauer?”

“What I think? I think you’re a coward, Conrads, to talk so—a coward, do you understand? Conquer or die, that’s our cry!”

“Yes, but we can’t conquer, and dying isn’t much good. Holzert won’t get his Marieke by it if we do!”

“But in that case the Prussian pig-dog won’t have her either!” shouted Holzert, banging the table with his fists.

At this, however, Bloemstein’s paternal feelings revolted. His daughter, his pretty Marieke—dead! No, he would rather see her married to the Prussian doctor, for the Prussians were not so bad after all! Nay, they even knew how to appreciate beauty—had not Bismarck himself written that she was a “charming, lovely girl”?

Klessens also was for peace, and so was Marbaise. “Against 150,000 Prussians,” said the latter, “and a few thousand Hollanders on top of those, you, Bauer, with your hundred and twenty men——”

“A hundred and twenty-three!” interrupted the commander of the Altenet forces.

“Well, a hundred and twenty-three, if you like—but you can’t do anything with them!”

A great deal more talking and shouting took place, and at last the President determined to end the debate by putting the question to the vote.

“War!” yelled Holzert. “Peace!” “Peace!” “Peace!” muttered Conrads, Marbaise, and Klessens, in succession.

“War!” thundered Bauer; and “I’m for peace,” said the President in conclusion.

Peace was therefore resolved on by a majority of two votes.

Several months have passed. The miners are at work again; the farmer is ploughing his fields; the lark sings high in air; the Altenet postage-stamps have been destroyed; and Marieke is the happy wife of Dr Olthausen.

No answer was ever received from the rest of the kings and emperors,—it is just possible that Marieke may have forgotten to post the letters entrusted to her care.

L. H. J. LAMBERTS-HURRELBRINCK.

_NEWSPAPER HUMOUR_.

“LOOK here, waiter!” cried a gentleman in a restaurant, “here’s a hair in my soup!”

For all answer and excuse, the waiter removed his cap, showing a head as bare and smooth as a billiard ball.

“Yes, I see,” resumed the customer, “I see it was your last hair; that’s all right, it will never happen again!”

* * * * *

“So you’ve written a play, M. Vermorcken?”

“Yes, my friend, I have that honour.”

“And it is quite finished?”

“Yes—no—yes; that is to say, not the play itself, yet—but my speech, that I am to make, when I thank them for calling me out on the stage.”

_FICTION AT SEA._

It is quiet now on deck. The singing forward has ceased, the watch is set, and the larboard watch, who are to come on at midnight, are below—including the tall corporal of marines, whom we heard just now singing bass. But the little monkey of a boy, who took the tenor part in “O Julia!” belongs to the starboard watch, and now has another occupation on hand.

Seated on a tub turned upside down, close to the foremast, he is reading aloud, by the light of a lantern, out of an “awfully fine” book.

The boy (his name is Jozef) can read “real first-rate”; and from each of the listeners seated round him he is to receive the sum of two cents.

The book which he now has before him, and which is covered with oil-stains, because he has to hold it so close to the lantern,—the book which is so “awfully fine,” is entitled “Count Matatskai; or, The Bandit with the Grey Beard: A Story from the Mountains.”

Count Matatskai is a youthful nobleman who has fallen in love with a mountain maiden, the beautiful but fierce Krimhelia, daughter of a chamois-hunter. After various meetings on the rocks by moonlight, with a faithful old servitor _incognito_ in the background, Krimhelia makes up her mind to accept the Count’s love, and fly with him to a distant country, where counts and the daughters of chamois-hunters stand precisely on the same social footing. But now a difficulty occurs, and it is this: Krimhelia has sworn an oath to avenge the death of her father, who has been killed in a fight with the band commanded by the Grey-Bearded Brigand.

This is the point Jozef has reached in the story. Several of his audience have already dropped asleep; but the reader does not notice it—he is too much absorbed in his narrative,—and continues, in his “first-rate” manner, which—heard at a distance—reminds one of nothing so much as of the soft but continuous murmur of a babbling brook—commas and other stops being, in this method, so entirely left in the background, or else occurring in such remarkable places, that a reporter would have been forced to reproduce his text somewhat as follows:—

“Krimhelia looked the Count straight in the face.

“Look at me Count said she do you see this glittering dagger as sure as the moon, hangs yonder in heaven and illuminates my pale features so surely will I thrust this, dagger into the heart of the Bandit, with the Grey Beard first and before I throw myself as your consort into your arms but why so pale Count and why do you tremble so?”

Now Jozef is interrupted by the master-tailor, a thin, little man, of whom it is commonly said on board that he knows a thing or two more than most people.

“Now, I know,” says he, in his piping voice.

“What d’ye know?” asks the boatswain, who has little or no opinion of the master-tailor.

“As how the gentleman—the Count, I mean—and the other,—the Bandit with the Grey Beard,—that both of them are one and the same man.”

“Well, you calico-spoiler—you know that, do you? Well—I know that too, and all of us know it right enough; but you needn’t take another man’s share in the reading for all that. Go ahead, boy!”

The master-tailor is looked at with contempt from various quarters, and Jozef pursues his reading with a chapter describing how Count Matatskai comes home in a bad temper.

“The Count threw himself down on a couch adorned with costly velvet, relieve me of my riding-boots—thus he spoke to the grey-headed old servant Gabario who, brought him a silver goblet with sparkling wine saying, that this was his favourite wine from the great vineyard south of the castle but, the Count made a gesture of refusal with his left hand and said me liketh no wine Gabario avaunt and saddle—my horse!”

This was the end of the chapter, and Jozef took breath.

“It’s a capital thing,” said the boatswain, “when a man can have the things for the ordering in that way. What comes next, Jozef?”

The boatswain is beginning to feel sleepy, and would therefore like Jozef to tell him the end at once; but this Jozef is by no means inclined to do,—he goes ahead valiantly, and by degrees, though he does not observe it, his whole audience drops asleep. At last, when he has reached the closing scene, there is no one to listen to it but the master-tailor, who can scarcely keep his small grey eyes open.

“Just hear this, now!” says Jozef, who—though he has read the book through twice before—is as enthusiastic over this passage as the first time. “Now you must listen! Now the Count is sitting up alone in the rocks, in a ... cavern, they call it, ... and now he is the Bandit with the Grey Beard; and the other robbers are sitting in the back of the cavern round a great big fire, and some of them are lying asleep, and the others are roasting great pieces of meat at the fire, and they’re drinking wine with it ... out of gold cups that they’ve stolen.... But the Bandit with the Grey Beard— ... _he’s_ sitting all by himself, you see,—and now Krimhelia comes in—you know—the young lady he thinks so much of.”

And Jozef resumes his reading—how Krimhelia approaches, cautiously, with the glittering dagger; how the Grey-Bearded Bandit, looking up, suddenly sees her standing behind him; how Krimhelia seizes him by the beard and drives the dagger into his heart; and how, at the same moment, the long grey beard comes off in her hand, and she looks with horror on the “pallid dying countenance” of Count Matatskai.

Now follows a dialogue between the dying bandit chief and the “almost fainting” Krimhelia, who is “filled with consternation”; in the course of which the tailor finally closes his eyes unobserved.

Now comes the closing scene; the other robbers come out from behind the fire, Krimhelia takes to flight, and climbs to the top of a steep dark rock on the edge of a “yawning abyss.”

As Jozef reads, he bends over his book, leans his head on his hands, and sees the whole thing taking place before his eyes. He sees Krimhelia standing on the top of the rock. The day is breaking in the east. The robbers are pursuing her, and begin to climb the rock....

Jozef reads on,—at a passionately accelerated pace, and with the most singular stops imaginable:—

“There she stood proudly—like a queen with her long, loose hair and her shining white face standing out sharply against the red sunrise-tinted sky with horror—she saw in the unfathomable depth at her feet the bandits approaching. Already the foremost was stretching out his hand to seize her and she saw, the morning-light falling on his horrible features when suddenly, her ear was struck by a sound of men’s voices singing beneath her in the valley she listens, it is the morning song of her brothers, she lifts her hands skywards and looks up to the paling moon and the stars ‘Ic-come’! she cries” (all in one word) “... and with a HOARSE shriek she flings herself down into the abyss at the same moment the Bandit Chief drew his last breath and the Count Matatskai was no more THE END.”

“That’s all!” said Jozef. “That’s fine, ain’t it? ... Oh! lor! ... they’re all asleep.”

Jozef cannot at once get over a slight feeling of indignation against an audience, capable of dropping-off “in the middle of a bit like that,”—but as it is not an isolated experience on his part, he soon makes up his mind to pay no further attention to it. He takes the lantern away, goes forward, and lies down on the deck with the oil-stained book under his head—looking up at the moon right above him, and beginning to see, in the air, all sorts of figures, which gradually acquire a likeness to Count Matatskai and the “young lady he thinks so much of.”

_A. Werumeus Buning_.

_NEWSPAPER HUMOUR._

FROM SAD EXPERIENCE.

_She_—“Do tell me, how do you know the age of a horse you want to buy?”

_He_—“Nothing easier; you just double the age the dealer gives him.”

* * * * *

_Professor_ (_at a clinical lecture_)—“This patient has been suffering from a disease of the hip-joint, so that he still walks lame to an appreciable extent. What would you, sir” (to one of the students), “do in such a case?”

_Student_—“I think, in that case, I should walk lame too, sir.”

* * * * *

NATURAL HISTORY.

_Master_—“The development and improvement of race has not only shown itself among mankind, but may clearly be observed among the lower animals. Who can give me an example of this?”

FROM SAD EXPERIENCE.
]

_Janneke Snobs_—“I, sir.”

_M._—“In what sort of animals?”

_J. S._—“Among asses, sir.”

_M._—“How so?”

_J. S_.—“Why, in Balaam’s time, asses were only just beginning to speak, and yesterday I heard M. Snugger say that there are plenty of asses sitting in the Chamber of Deputies.”

* * * * *

HISTORY.

_Master_—“In what battle was Gustav Adolf killed?”

_Janneke Snobs_—“In his last battle, I believe, sir.”

* * * * *

PRECAUTIONS.

Many centuries ago, the gallows stood on the banks of the Scheldt; and once, when two thieves were to be hanged, the rope broke, as the first was being turned off, and let him into the water. He swam across the river, and escaped.

“Look out!” said the second to the executioner, “see that the rope does not break with me—for _I can’t swim!_”

* * * * *

A gentleman was buying a newspaper at a kiosk, and wanted change for a frank. “I have no change,” said the saleswoman; “you can pay me to-morrow.”

“But supposing I am dead by to-morrow?”

“Oh, that can’t be any great loss,” she replied, innocently.

* * * * *

A servant girl, writing home to her parents, said, “I am sorry I have no money to buy a stamp for this letter; I will put two on the next.”

_Uilenspiegel._

“A GENTLEMAN WAS BUYING A PAPER AT A KIOSK.”
]

* * * * *

IN COURT.

_Judge_—“Is this your signature?”

_Witness_—“I don’t know.”

_Judge_—“Look at it carefully.”

_Witness_—“I can’t say for certain.”

_Judge_ (impatiently)—“Come, make haste, just write your name.”

_Witness_—“I’m no scholar, sir; I can’t write.”

* * * * *

ECONOMY.

_Father_—“I should never have thought that studying would have cost so much money.”

_Student-Son_—“Yes; and if you only knew how little I have studied!”

* * * * *

Van Honsbœren, junior, one evening sat gazing at his father, when the latter had fallen asleep sitting by the stove.

“Father,” cried the little fellow, suddenly, “you look just like a lion!”

“A lion!” exclaimed Van Honsbœren, waking up, “why, you’ve never seen any lions.”

“Oh yes, father! on the beach at Blankenberghe.”

“You stupid boy, those were not lions, they were donkeys.”

“Well, those are what I mean!”

* * * * *

_Snugger—“M. le Juge_, I have been fined for letting my dog go about without a muzzle, and he certainly had one on.”

_Judge_—“The _agent de police_ says your dog had no muzzle on.”

_Snugger_—“Indeed, he had one on, sir.”

_Gendarme_—“Yes, but he was not wearing it on his head.”

_Snugger_—“The regulations do not specify _where_ a dog is to wear his muzzle—and so, to let the beast get his breath, I tied the muzzle to his tail.”

_Judge_—“Five francs fine. Next case!”

* * * * *

Snobs has bought a steam-engine, and was showing it to his friend Snugger yesterday.

“How many horse-power is that machine?” asked Snugger.

“Horse-power!” exclaimed Snobs, “don’t you see it goes by steam?”

* * * * *

Nothing is more uncomfortable for a woman who has to keep a secret than to find no one who is curious about it.

* * * * *

The human being who can pass a hoarding marked “Wet Paint,” without putting his finger on it to feel if the paint really is wet, possesses strength of will and self-control enough to rule a kingdom.

* * * * *

A lady having run against the freshly painted rail of a bridge, and carried off a considerable quantity of the paint on her dress, the bridge-keeper said to her consolingly,—

“Never mind, ma’am, they’re going to paint it again to-morrow, any way!”

_FARMER GERRIT’S VISIT TO AMSTERDAM._

Gerrit Meeuwsen and his son Gijs, living in the depths of the country,
in the Betuwe district (the old Batavian Island, between the Rhine and
the Waal), have made up their minds—after long deliberation—for an
expedition by rail to the Amsterdam kermis. As they have never left
home before, preparations are made which suggest an Arctic voyage, and
they take a solemn farewell of their friends and relations. The
railway station is safely reached, after a drive of many miles; and
Gerrit severs the last link, so to speak, by sending back Jan—the
farm-man—with the trap.

“G’morning,” said father and son, at once.

“Good-morning, friends,” replied the station clerk, who was seated at a table doing sums.

Meeuwsen took off his great woollen gloves, hauled out his double-cased watch, and said, “Might it be about time for the railway to come?”

“Don’t know,” answered Gijs, who thought that his father was asking the question of him.

The clerk, a good-natured fellow, understanding that the question was addressed to him, replied, “Oh! I suppose you mean the _train_. Yes, that will be coming by very soon,—perhaps in thirteen, or fourteen, or fifteen minutes. Where do you want to go?”

“To Amsterdam,” replied Meeuwsen.

“Amsterdam—third-class?” asked the clerk.

“Third-class, what’s that?” returned Gerrit.

“Three classes, you know, my good friend,” the clerk explained; “first, second, and third. The first is the dearest, the second middling, and the third the cheapest.”

“Then the third won’t do for us, nor the second neither,” said Gerrit. “I always sit in the first seat at church in our village, for I be churchwarden.”[16]

“First-class?” asked the clerk, in surprise, “but—do you know——”

“Never you mind; I want first-class, do you hear?” said Gerrit.

“Well, it’s all the same to me,” said the clerk, rising. He went to the place where he kept the tickets, stamped two, and received the rich Betuwers money.

“Gracious! there’s the train!” cried the clerk, whose calculation of fifteen minutes had been rather too liberal. “Will you come out, please?”

Gerrit and Gijs, the latter carrying the carpet-bag, rushed out on to the platform, followed by the clerk. The approaching train seemed to the travellers to grow longer the more they looked at it, and, when it stopped, both father and son involuntarily took a step backwards.

Neither Gerrit nor Gijs knew exactly what happened to them next; but when they got back all their senses,—for the wind was blowing freshly in their faces,—they saw themselves in a carriage containing, besides themselves, two other passengers, and which allowed free passage to the wind on all sides.

“Bad weather for the money,” grumbled Gerrit.

“Why! come and sit over here,” cried one of their fellow-travellers, apparently a Jew, who was sitting on the opposite side of the carriage, with his back to the engine. “Sit here, on the first seat; you will be frozen to death over there.”

Gerrit looked at his son, and then both stumbled along the shaking carriage to the other end, and occupied the end seats.

“That’s a difference!” said Gijs, whose skin felt like that of a plucked chicken.

“Well, this does shake!” said Meeuwsen. “No!—that third-class is enough to kill one!”

Nathan, who was reading a book, which, as Gerrit could see, seemed to begin at the end and go backwards, did not speak again. The second travelling-companion had turned up the collar of his thick overcoat and was snoring; and our two gentlemen from Betuwe, having nothing to say to each other, were silent, and thought—what, no one ever will know.

After a few minutes’ run, a conductor appeared—whence, neither Gerrit nor Gijs could understand—and asked them, “Where for, gentlemen?”

“_Gentlemen!_” exclaimed Gerrit, with fine scorn, “_that_ won’t go down with us!”

“Farmers, then!” said the conductor, “where for?”

Meeuwsen thought the fellow had no manners, and said, “I and my son for Amsterdam.”

“Show your tickets, please,” said the conductor.

Meeuwsen began to search for them.... “I’d put them away so carefully,” he remarked, while turning out all his pockets.

“Well, never mind,” resumed the conductor (he was very cold, and wanted to get back to his warm corner in the closed compartment), “you can show me them presently.”

“Very good,” replied Gerrit, who began to think the man was not so bad after all.

The conductor disappeared again, in the same mysterious fashion, and Gerrit suddenly remembered that he had put away the tickets inside his watch-case.

At every station, when the whistle of the engine was heard, Gijs was seized with consternation, thinking that a child or some other living creature had been run over. Every time the train stopped, the sons of Batavia prepared to alight, and each time they were politely stopped by Nathan, who told them they might just make their minds easy, for they had not got there yet. Gijs thereupon came to the conclusion that the journey would not be over so soon as the schoolmaster had led them to suppose.

At length, after they had left the last of the intermediate stations behind, the mysterious conductor appeared once more, and asked for the tickets; and Gerrit, who had kept them carefully in his hand, under his woollen glove, produced them, and gave them up.

“First-class!” said the conductor. “Why, man, you’ve certainly had the best for your money!”

“Hi?” said Meeuwsen, who could not understand what the fellow meant.

“Stupid bumpkins!” muttered the conductor in an undertone, happily inaudible to the Meeuwsens, and left the carriage with a loud “Amsterdam, gentlemen!” The train now stopped for good. Every one got out, and there was such a row that Gerrit and his son could not understand what was going on, and stood staring about them quite dazed.

People, carriages, cabs, omnibuses, trunks, drivers with brandished whips, crying, “This way, sir!—Hotel this!—Hotel that!—just off!” There was such a swarming and confusion that our travellers only regained their full consciousness when they found themselves sitting in an omnibus, packed, knee to knee, like herrings in a barrel,—and, probably, dreaming—at least, so they thought.

“Where to, sir?” asked the conductor of the omnibus, in a green coat trimmed with silver lace, of the person sitting next the door.

“The Dam,” was the answer. “Botermarkt,” said another passenger. “Rokin, No. 11,” said another; and another followed with “The Mint.”

“Sir?” said the inquisitive man, addressing Gijs.

“I?” asked Gijs, staring wildly; “to the Fair, isn’t it, father?”

All the passengers laughed, except three or four who were in a hurry to get to the Exchange.

“Be’st mad, I think, boy,” said Gerrit, grinning. “No, mate,” he went on, addressing the conductor, “to a lodging.”

“Which hotel?” was then the question. “First, second, third, fourth, fifth class? Rondeel, Doelen, Munt—or do you want to go to the Nes?”[17]

Whether Gerrit was thinking of the third-class carriage in which he had been sitting with Gijs, and contrasting it with the imaginary first-class where he found a place by the side of Nathan, we do not know; but it is certain that he shivered at the idea of a fifth-class, and had his answer ready at once—

“First-class, man! First-class!”

“_Vieux Doelen!_” cried the conductor, with a smile and a furtive wink at the passenger next the door.

The omnibus stopped, and Gerrit and Gijs were beckoned to come out. How they ever got through the double row of knees is quite incomprehensible; and twice did the heels of Gijs’ heavy boots come unpleasantly in contact with corns, whose proprietors, therefore, unkindly addressed him as “Clumsy lout!” and “Dumb ass!”

“How much is it?” asked Gerrit.

The conductor gave a look round, and then said, under his breath—

“Only ten stivers[18] each, sir. I can’t ask you for more.”

Meeuwsen gave him a florin, whereupon he asked whether the gentleman couldn’t spare him a trifle for himself!

This question was answered by the good-natured farmer thrusting a _kwartje_[19] into his hand; and the unscrupulous rascal drove away, laughing in his sleeve.

Gerrit, and Gijs with the carpet-bag on his back, stared for a long time at the fine house, with the gilt letters on the front; and at length ventured to go up the steps, though they could not make up their minds to venture in.

“What do you want?” politely asked a handsome young gentleman, in a snow-white waistcoat and a beautiful black jacket, who came out of the broad hall and walked up to them.

“Lodgings,” answered Gerrit.

“For yourself?” asked the young gentleman, who, seen at close quarters, seemed older than his jacket would have led one to suppose.

“I and my son Gijs,” said Gerrit.

“You?” again asked the young gentleman.

“Is that so hard to understand?” asked the farmer. “Are there no lodgings here? Can we get them, or can’t we?”

The young gentleman walked away, and stopped to speak to another young gentleman like unto himself, who met him in the corridor. Soon after two more arrived, one of them with a napkin over his arm, and all the four began to laugh immoderately; so that Gerrit began to be tired of waiting, and, approaching the group, said, with some violence, “Now, what is it to be? Are we to get rooms, or are we not?” The young gentlemen continued to giggle, but suddenly stopped, and scattered with surprising rapidity, for a dignified elderly person entered the vestibule, and asked what was the matter here. Whereupon Gerrit expounded to him that he had asked, in a straightforward and downright way, for lodgings; that he did not know what the young gentlemen were up to; that he had come with his son to attend the fair; that he had no mind to be what-you-may-call-ummed and made a fool of by those young gentlemen; and that he asked, once more, Could he, or could he not?

The respectable gentleman took a good look at Gerrit and Gijs—the latter was still outside the door with the carpet-bag—for some moments; but the open honest face, and generally prosperous appearance of the farmer, reassured him as to the probability of their being good customers. He then laid his forefinger against his nose, and called out to one of the young gentlemen,—

“No. 71 and 72, Karel. _Allons!_”

Karel came. Gerrit beckoned Gijs to come in. Gijs also came.

“Take the gentleman’s luggage,” said the proprietor of the hotel to Karel, pointing to the carpet-bag, which Gijs still carried over his shoulder.

“Oh, no! thank you,” said Gijs, as the young gentleman Karel went about to relieve him of his load. Karel, however, did not leave go. The proprietor was present; and, in spite of Gijs’ asseverations that he was far too kind, he seized the bag and flew up the broad staircase like a jumping rabbit.

“If you will follow, gentlemen,” said the proprietor, “the _garçon_ will show you your rooms.” Gerrit, putting up, for the sake of peace, with the title of gentleman, followed the flying _garçon_, and Gijs followed his father.

“Where are we going to?” cried the stout farmer, to whom climbing of stairs was an unaccustomed exercise.

“To No. 71 and 72,” said the _garçon_.

“I don’t care what number it is—number thousand, if you like—but I didn’t come here to climb up a tower!”

“We shall be there directly,” said Karel, still flying on ahead.

“Go on, then!” said Gerrit, taking courage; and on they went again, up stairs and more stairs—there was no end to it.

“Are we not there yet?” sighed Meeuwsen, when Gijs had counted the forty-fifth flight of steps, and they had come to an arched doorway.

“This way round!” cried Karel, and flew on, still higher.

“No! that’s too much; I give it up!” cried Gerrit, holding fast to the banisters. “It’s enough to drive a man crazy! I’ll go no farther.”

“Only a few more,” said Karel persuasively. At last, when Gijs had counted sixty-three, the two, panting and gasping, reached their goal—Nos. 71 and 72.

“_Ici_,” said Karel, throwing open both doors almost at the same moment.

“_Ici_ or no _ici_” muttered the farmer, “what I say is that no decent man can be expected to do it!”

“This is your room,” said Karel, pointing to No. 72, as he saw that Gijs was about to follow his father into No. 71.

“I?” ejaculated Gijs.

“_S’il vous plaît_” said the waiter, and flinging the carpet-bag into No. 71, he left the rooms, stood still in the passage between the two apartments, and looking at father and son by turns, went on, “Any more orders? Will the gentlemen dine at the _table d’hôte_, at half-past four?”

Gijs understood not a single word of this; and Gerrit, who likewise did not grasp the subtleties of the situation, answered shortly, “No,” being mortally afraid of having to do any more climbing.

Karel having had enough of this exalted society, uttered no further questions or remarks, slammed both doors, reached the ground floor by sliding down the banisters, and left the father and son, each in his own room, to their respective meditations.

The well-furnished rooms were only divided from one another by a thin wooden partition, and their windows afforded a delightful view, to wit, a red-tiled roof, from which arose a tall black chimney.

Gijs looked round, like a cat in a strange warehouse, and did not think Amsterdam so very beautiful after all.

“Boy! where are you?” shouted Gerrit. “What are we to do now? Just come here!”

“Can I do that, father?” roared Gijs, in a voice that could easily have been heard in the street.

“Of course!” cried Gerrit.

Gijs went on tiptoe to his door, and, speeding as though death were at his heels, out of No. 72 and into No. 71.

“Look here, boy!” said Gerrit, when his son was safely inside, “here we sit, and I’m so hungry that I can’t see straight.”

“So am I,” asseverated Gijs.

“Then you ought to call,” said his father, “and we might order something.”

Gijs muttered something about “so strange,” and “if father were to do it himself,”—but, like a dutiful son, he went to the stairs, and shouted—very much as he was accustomed at home to call the calves to their food—“_Huup! huup! huup!_”

No one came. At last a door opened, and an old gentleman in hat and greatcoat came out, and passed Gijs.

“Oh!” said Gijs, his shyness giving way before his own hunger and his father’s orders, “would you be so kind as to order something to eat for us!”

“Pull the bell, you young donkey!” was the polite reply. The donkey departed without a word, and, after some searching, Father Meeuwsen found a rope hanging in No. 71, at which he pulled,—and lo! they heard a bell ring. A minute later Karel was again standing before them.

“You must bring us something to eat,” said the farmer, who now began to understand that the young man was a waiter.

“_Déjeuner à la fourchette?_” asked Karel.

“Don’t know those things,” replied Gerrit. “I’ve never eaten _desernages_, nor _forzettes_ either. Just bring us something, my lad,—I don’t much care what, so long as we can get something inside us.”

Flop went the door again; and five minutes later there arrived at No. 71 some strange substances of whose nature Gerrit and Gijs had not the remotest idea. They began, however, to try and to taste, and though they could scarcely get the things down their throats, they were messed up so queerly with sweet stuff and spice, they managed to satisfy their appetites somehow.

“I’ve had enough,” said Gerrit at last.

“So have I,” sighed Gijs, and they rose from table,—to go to the kermis.

We will not relate in detail how Gerrit and Gijs climbed downstairs again, went out at the front door, and announced that they would come back again in the evening; how they were besieged by beggars, shoeblacks, and Jews selling lottery tickets,—nearly all of whom the good-natured farmer succeeded in satisfying; how they were directed from one part of the town to another, and back again, in order to reach the fair; how and when they got there they found booths, just like those in their own village, but much bigger and finer ones. We will not record how much Gerrit paid for the monster cake which he wished to take home to Griet, and which bore the inscription, in sugar letters, “A Fairing for You;” how Gijs was cheated in the purchase of a cup and saucer for Mijntje; how they, furthermore, bought ginger-bread, almonds, and who knows what besides, so that their pockets stood out like hard lumps, and they were nearly fainting under the weight of them. They visited the circus, but were not edified; and when, finally, the great trick rider “_Meseu_ Blanus,” after two sudden changes of costume, appeared in flesh-coloured tights, and walked about blowing a trumpet, Gerrit could stand it no longer, and seizing his son by the arm, he shouted, “That beats all! so it does! come, boy, come! come!” and hurried him out. When they had struggled out into the crowd again, Gerrit said that they had had their fill of that sort of thing, and more; and Gijs remarked that it was low. They did not attempt to see any of the other shows, and Gerrit unmercifully dragged Gijs past “The Mirror of Mystery,” where, as the man at the door said, “The girl can see her lover, and the young man his girl,—all for a _dubbeltje_! Great American Magic Mirror of Mystery!” Gijs would have liked a peep at his Mijntje, but Gerrit was firm.

Having partaken, by way of refreshment, of hot wafers and punch,—a repast which Gijs liked well enough, but his father considered “sweet, but nothing to stay your stomach on,”—they at last, after many wanderings, found their way back to the hotel. The nimble rabbit, Mr Karel, was again to the fore. In the twinkling of an eye he had lit a candle, and flew up the stairs, requesting the wearied rustics, unaccustomed to the hard walking of the streets, to follow him, _s’il vous plaît_.

Gerrit and Gijs followed—yes! and in time they reached the top, but felt just as if a thousand smiths were hammering away in their bones.

“Do the gentlemen wish _souper_?” asked Karel, who by this time had lit candles in each of the two rooms.

“Eat soup now!” said Gerrit, “get away with you! I’m fair filled up with those wafer-cakes!”

“Put boots outside door—when d’you-want-to-be-called?” asked Karel.

“I’m going away to-morrow morning by the first train,” said Gerrit.

“Then you’ll want a _vigilante_?”

“Go to the ... woodpile!” cried Gerrit, “with all your foreign talk.”

“Good-night, gentlemen!” said Karel.

The doors were shut, and the gentlemen were left alone. Now began a conversation between the two—carried on in genuine rustic growls, and yet as softly as if they were afraid of waking “Mother my wife.” A few minutes later Gijs retired, with a new blue wadded night-cap, and a “good-night, dad,” to No. 72.

Gerrit had at once blown out the wax candles in No. 71. “That’s just sinful waste,” he said; and Gijs, on entering No. 72, followed his father’s example.

They were not long in undressing by moonlight. Gijs put on the night-cap, and stepped into the soft bed. What a thing that was!—soft as pap!... Never knew such a thing before.... He lay listening.... Every moment he heard something ... some one walking about ... groping among the furniture ... at last speaking. At last, he could stand it no longer—he sat up and stared uneasily about. He thought he could plainly ... hear ... something ... at ... the ... door. Seemed as if ... you ... could ... see ... the ... handle ... turning.... The perspiration broke out all over him ... still he saw it ... plainly ... and, when the door was really opened, he uttered a yell, but slowly recovered himself on seeing that it was his father.

“Can’t rest on _that_ thing,” said Gerrit, as he came in, meaning the bed, which he found much too soft. “No, Gijs, I’ll just come and lie here on the boards.”

“I’ll do that too,” said Gijs, stepping out of bed, and then he lay down on the floor beside his father—each with a pea-jacket rolled up for a pillow—“good-night! pleasant dreams.”

Whether the dreams were, in point of fact, pleasant may be doubted, for they formed a first-class raree-show, composed of bare legs and wafer-cakes, guns and horses, omnibuses, and the climbing of towers, in wild confusion. Certain it is, however, that the Meeuwsens, father and son, when they awoke, stared at one another as if they had been bewitched, and had to think a long time before they could remember where on earth they were.

* * * * *

Well, how did they get home again from the fair?—Gerrit to his Griet, and Gijs to his Mijn.

Very well indeed. Physically they were in sad case, but spiritually all right—which does not always happen on like occasions. The bill which Karel handed to Gerrit before his departure was alike illegible to him and to Gijs. Perhaps no one but the hotel-proprietor and the head-waiter could ever have deciphered it—only the total was clear: 16f. 80—accurately reckoned. Gerrit thought, but said nothing; paid; started, when he was told that a tip was expected of him, over and above the bill, but paid it; and left the Verdoel by the first omnibus, and Amsterdam by the first train.

“That’s over!” said Gerrit, sitting safe and sound once more beside his Griet in the kitchen. “Once is well enough—but never again! And I had everything first-class!”

This was true enough: for on the return journey he had managed to get into the right compartment of the train—though, to say the truth, he found it much less comfortable than the other.

And Gijs? Gijs was as blythe as a foal in the meadow, when he found himself at home again. When he told Mijn about the circus, and the young ladies in gilt caps who had sold him wafers, and tried to flirt with him, she turned as red as fire, and said it was scandalous; but the cup and saucer, which, contrary to all expectation, had reached home uninjured, were duly admired by her. And when Gerrit, one fine evening, had some of the neighbours in to help in the pig-killing, and entertained them in the kitchen when work was over, the monster cake was tasted, and Gerrit profited by the opportunity to relate all his adventures. Then said Brother-in-Law Kresel, that such a thing hadn’t happened within the memory of man!—and Baas Janssen, that morality was getting into a frightful state!—and the old Teunis farmer concluded, “What does a man want on the ice in his clogs?”

J. J. CREMER.

_NO SWORD!_

Old Colonel H—— was standing, during one of the summer months, before the open window, puffing the smoke of his Havannah into the air, with the feeling of satisfaction produced by a fine day, while his eyes followed the movements of a young officer, whose elastic figure had already, at some distance, attracted his superior’s attention.

Suddenly his face darkened. No one so soon feels his toes trodden on as an old military man.

What was that? Were his eyes dazzled by the sunlight? Or could anything of the sort possibly happen under the eye of the strict commanding officer of the regiment? Had discipline really died out among the younger generation of the army?

No, it was no optical deception. He could see it now, plainly—the lieutenant, passing there, on the other side of the street, with a letter in his hand, had _no_ sword on! And it was not nearly four P.M.!

“Lieutenant!” cried the fire-eater, in a momentary ebullition of indignation, from the open window; “if I may ask you—one moment!”

The man addressed immediately turned with a military salute, and hastened to the Colonel’s rooms, without the slightest presentiment of the storm about to burst over his head.

He rang the bell, and the Colonel’s servant opened the door.

Passing through the hall, he gave a hasty glance at his uniform to see whether it was all right—and then he discovered his misfortune. Horrible! He had, in his haste to post a letter, forgotten to buckle on his sword!

For one moment he hesitated; he was really frightened, and saw, looming up in space, all the evil consequences of his mistake, in the form of all possible reports, with “arrest” at the end of them.

The Colonel would send a note to the commander of division, who would endorse and put it into the hands of the captain—and then the fat would be in the fire with a vengeance! All this passed like a flash of lightning through the unhappy man’s head, and he looked helplessly round, as though hoping that some good genius would inspire him with a way of escape in this sore need. What was he to do? He could not keep the cantankerous Colonel waiting,—there was nothing for it except to march valiantly forward into the lion’s den. But luck never forsakes a lieutenant!

What is that glittering over there in the umbrella-stand?

The Colonel’s sword!... He pulls out his purse,—thrusts, with an eloquent gesture, a guilder into the hand of the Colonel’s man, and buckles on the sword—all in less time than it takes to tell it.

A moment later he stands—in correct military attitude, his left hand held so as to hide the dragon on his sword-hilt from the eagle eye of his chief—before the old gentleman, who, meanwhile, has been stalking up and down the room, fretting and fuming.

“Sir! I must call your attention to——”

A long pause.

The Colonel’s glance travels from the sword to the young officer’s blushing face, and back again to the glittering weapon.

Then he shakes his head in utter amazement, but recovers himself speedily, and continues in a low tone:

“What battalion do you belong to?”

“The second, Colonel.”

“Just so. I only wanted to ask you if—if—Major Ij ... has returned from his leave?”

“He is not coming back till to-morrow, sir, if I have understood rightly.”

“IN CORRECT MILITARY ATTITUDE.”
]

“Ah!—thank you—it had escaped me—thanks.”

The lieutenant saluted respectfully, left the room with the greatest air of self-confidence, hastened down the stairs, unbuckled the Colonel’s sword—put it away noiselessly among the sticks and umbrellas, after which he hurried away, keeping as close as he could to the wall till he was out of sight.

As for the Colonel, he simply could not believe his eyes! Then something occurred to him. He called his man.

“Did you let the lieutenant in?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Was he wearing a sword when he came in?”

“Yes, sir,” answered he, with imperturbable calm.

The Colonel smote his forehead with his open hand.

The lieutenant’s guilder was well invested.

“_Humoristisch Album._”

A STUDENT’S LODGINGS SIXTY YEARS SINCE.

The burghers of the university town—at least those whose houses, at the beginning of the summer vacation, are adorned with cards bearing the inscription “_Cubicula locanda_”—can, during nine months of the year, be looked on only to a limited extent as masters in their own dwellings. It is the student, or the officer, as the case may be, who is established in the best room, who attracts all the attention of passers by, and the neighbours over the way,—who sits at the window, is seen to go in and out at the front door, carries the key, rules, gives orders, receives his friends and acquaintances, and, in a word, conducts himself as the principal person, while the owner or lessee of the house is banished to a back room or some little subterraneous den in the basement. It is to the best room, then, that we must make our way, though the approach to it is not an attractive one. Our way lies, first, through a narrow passage, where we run the risk of stumbling over a doorstep, evidently placed there with the sole object of teaching children and visitors to be careful of their steps. Then we have to seek a dark and narrow stairway, and, having found it, to ascend it. It receives, by day, only a dim and doubtful light from the basement; by night, it is perfectly dark, and its worn and slippery steps follow one another at such strangely unequal intervals, that one is tempted to think the architect must have been interested in the problem how to pile on one another, in a given space, a given number of irregular parallelograms in the most heterogeneous manner possible. When we have succeeded, after having knocked our heads not more than three or four times against all sorts of fantastically projecting rafters and angles, in reaching what is ironically called the _bel étage_, we find ourselves in front of a door which opens very easily and noiselessly, but can never be closed without five or six violent thrusts or tugs, according as you are inside or out. We once more hit our toes against an unexpected doorstep, and at last enter the first of the two rooms inhabited by _Gerlof Bol, S.S. Theol. cand_.

It is evening; the two sash windows, divided by a narrow space of wall, are hidden behind unpainted shutters, on which, here and there, a square, worm-eaten, or dirt-stained spot shows where a hasp or bolt has been, but is no more. These shutters curve outwards, and threaten every moment to escape from the control of the bars (bent crooked as though with their weight), and fling themselves in the face of the incautious person who should venture too near. The walls are covered with a dirty yellow paper, on which green and blue flowers alternate in diagonal lines. Now and then, where the paper has been torn, another piece of the same pattern has been pasted on upside down, probably for the sake of securing a pleasing variety; while in other cases the damage has not been repaired, and an earlier wall decoration, in orange and black, is apparent in patches. On the wall hang the portraits of Van Der Palm and Borgen[20] in one frame, the lecture list, fastened up with three pins, and a variety of college notices secured in the same way. Near the door is a tolerably roomy alcove, containing the occupant’s chief treasures,—in the first place, his books, which, in so far as they consist of quartos, octavos, and duodecimos, are ranged on three shelves against the wall, while the folios stand on the ground in the company of sundry maps in cases; in the second place, two baskets, one of which is full of burnt-out clay pipes, the other of foul ditto awaiting their burning. Item, a closed card-table, bought cheap at a second-hand dealer’s, which can never stand on more than two legs at the same time; while the superficies of the once green baize with which it is covered offers a remarkable assemblage of mathematical figures, such as circles formed by the setting down of wet punch or wine glasses, ellipses or squares arising from the dropping of wax, grease, or ink, or the contact with various objects not previously dusted. Item, an umbrella without a knob, whose whalebone ribs, for the most part, have either repudiated all connection with the covering, or shamelessly protrude through it. Furthermore, a trio of eccentric-looking canes, a couple of broken German pipes, a little tin box, a small writing-desk heaped with _dictata_, MS. notes, and dilapidated books; a large reading desk, holding the _editio princeps_ of the States Bible;[21] and, _last not least_, as the English say, a small basket containing full, and a large one with empty, wine bottles.

The said alcove is provided with a double door, and when the latter is closed, peculiar skill, or else a lucky conjuncture of circumstances, is necessary to open it, seeing that the handle usually displays a remarkable degree of obstinacy, and calmly turns round in one’s hand unnumbered times without lifting the latch.

As to the other furniture of the room, the following is an accurate inventory:—

1. A small mirror in a polished wooden frame,—the glass consisting of two sections, each of a different colour. If you see yourself in the lower half you have a purple countenance, in the upper a green one, and in either case your features are cruelly distorted; in fact, no one ever looked into this mirror, either above or below, who did not instantly look out of it again,—so frightfully ugly does every one find him or herself, as the case may be.