slender stalks of balsam, and cages containing bright-plumaged
goldfinches. On the side opposite to the entrance were two closed rooms.
Above the door of one, neatly carved 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 c