write a letter; but he laughed rather faintly, for he well
recollected how many times he had written letters in just such a way. He
secretly resolved, however, that when they came in from their walk, and
Mr. George sat down to his writing, he would write too, and would see
whether he could not, for once, produce a letter that should be at least
worth the postage.

After they came in from their walk, they asked the landlady to have a
fire made in their room; but she said they could not have any fire, for
the stoves were not put up. She said it was the custom in Holland not to
put the stoves up until October; and so nobody could have a fire in any
thing but foot stoves until that time. The foot stoves, she said, would
make it very comfortable for them.

So she brought in two foot stoves. They consisted of small, square
boxes, with holes bored in the top, and a little fire of peat in an
earthen vessel within. Rollo asked Mr. George to give him two sheets of
thin note paper, and he established himself at a window that looked out
upon a canal. He intended to amuse himself in the intervals of his
writing in watching the boats that were passing along the canal.

He took two sheets of note paper instead of one sheet of letter paper,
in order that, if he should get tired after filling one of them, he
could stop, and so send what he had written, without causing his father
to pay postage on any useless paper.

"Then," thought he, "if I do _not_ get tired, I will go on and fill the
second sheet, and my mother will have a double small letter. A double
small letter will be just as good as a single large one."

This was an excellent plan.

Rollo also took great pains to guard against another fault which boys
often fall into in writing their letters; that is, the fault of growing
careless about the writing as they go on with the work, by which means a
letter is produced which looks very neat and pretty at the beginning,
but becomes an ill-looking and almost illegible scrawl at the end.

"I'll begin," said he, "as I think I shall be able to hold out; and I'll
hold out to the end just as I begin."

Rollo remained over his letter more than three hours. He would have
become exceedingly tired with the work if he had written continuously
all this time; but he stopped to rest very often, and to amuse himself
with observing what was passing before him in the street and on the
canal.

Mr. George was occupied all this time in writing _