ll continue your office of syndic of the town of Amsterdam."

"Pardon me, your majesty," replied Mynheer Krause respectfully, but
firmly, "I have obeyed your summons to appear in your presence, but will
request that your majesty will release me from the burden. I have come
to lay my chain and staff of office at your majesty's feet, it being my
intention to quit the town."

"You are too hasty, Mynheer Krause," replied his majesty with
displeasure.

"May it please your majesty," replied Krause, "he who has been confined
as a prisoner in the Stadt House, is not fit to exercise his duties
there as a judge. I have served your majesty many years with the utmost
zeal and fidelity. In return, I have been imprisoned and my property
destroyed. I must now return to a station more suitable to my present
condition, and once more, with every assurance of loyalty, I beg to be
permitted to lay my insignia of office at your majesty's feet."

Mynheer Krause suited the action to the word. The king frowned and
turned away to the window, and Mynheer Krause, perceiving that his
majesty's back was turned upon him, walked out of the door.

"Too hasty!" thought Mynheer Krause. "I am loyal and thrown into
prison, and am expected to be satisfied with the plea of being too
hasty. My house is burnt down, and the plundering mob have been too
hasty. Well--well--it is fortunate I took Ramsay's advice: my house and
what was in it was a trifle; but if all my gold at Hamburg and
Frankfort, and in the charge of Ramsay had been there, and I had been
made a beggar, all the satisfaction I should have received would have
been a smile, and the excuse of being too hasty. I wonder where my
daughter and Ramsay are? I long to join them."

From which mental soliloquy, it will be evident to the render, that
Mynheer Krause's loyalty had been considerably diminished, perhaps
thinking that he had paid too dear for the commodity.

Upon his return, Mynheer Krause publicly announced that he had resigned
the office of syndic, much to the astonishment of those who heard of it,
and much to the delight of his very particular friend Engelback, who,
the next morning, set off for the Hague, and had an interview with his
Grace the Duke of Portland, the result of which was, that upon grounds
best known to the parties, for history will not reveal everything,
Mynheer Engelback was recommended to fill the office of syndic of the
town of Amsterdam, vacant by the resig