rved in wood, were the lines from
Horace:

"Ille terrarum mihi praeter omnes.
Angulus ridet."

[Of all the corners of the world,
There is none that so charms me.]

Only a few chosen guests found admittance into this long, narrow
apartment. It was completely wainscoted with wood, and from the centre
of the richly-carved ceiling a strange picture gleamed in brilliant
hues. This represented the landlord. The worthy man with the smooth
face, firmly-closed lips, and long nose, which offered an excellent
straight line to its owner's burin, sat on a throne in the costume of
a Roman general, while Vulcan and Bacchus, Minerva and Poinona, offered
him gifts. Klaus Van Aken, or as he preferred to be called, Nicolaus
Aquanus, was a singular man, who had received good gifts from more than
one of the Olympians; for besides his business he zealously devoted
himself to science and several of the arts. He was an excellent
silver-smith, a die-cutter and engraver of great skill, had a remarkable
knowledge of coins, was an industrious student and collector of
antiquities. His little tap-room was also a museum; for on the shelves,
that surrounded it, stood rare objects of every description, in rich
abundance and regular order; old jugs and tankards, large and small
coins, gems in carefully-sealed glass-cases, antique lamps of clay
and bronze, stones with ancient Roman inscriptions, Roman and Greek
terra-cotta, polished fragments of marble which he had found in Italy
among the ruins, the head of a faun, an arm, a foot and other bits of
Pagan works of art, a beautifully-enamelled casket of Byzantine work,
and another with enamelled ornamentation from Limoges. Even half a Roman
coat of mail and a bit of mosaic from a Roman bath were to be seen here.
Amid these antiquities, stood beautiful Venetian glasses, pine-cones and
ostrich-eggs. Such another tap-room could scarcely be found in Holland,
and even the liquor, which a neatly-dressed maid poured for the guests
from oddly-shaped tankards into exquisitely-wrought goblets, was
exceptionally fine. In this room Herr Aquanus himself was in the habit
of appearing among his guests; in the other, opposite to the entrance,
his wife held sway.

On this day, the "Angulus," as the beautiful taproom was called, was but
thinly occupied, for the sun had just set, though the lamps were already
lighted. These rested in three-branched iron chandeliers, every portion
of which