smaller like a set of double steps until the top one was
lost in a point. The roof was built of short, shining tiles, and the
windows, with their little panes, seemed to be scattered irregularly
over the face of the building, without the slightest attention to
outward effect. But the public room on the ground floor was the
landlord's joy and pride. He never said, "Mend it and paint it," there,
for everything was in the highest condition of Dutch neatness and order.
If you will but open your mind's eye, you may look into the apartment.

Imagine a large, bare room, with a floor that seemed to be made of
squares cut out of glazed earthen pie-dishes, first a yellow piece, then
a red, until the whole looked like a vast checkerboard. Fancy a dozen
high-backed wooden chairs standing around; then a great hollow chimney
place all aglow with its blazing fire, reflected a hundred times in the
polished steel firedogs; a tiled hearth, tiled sides, tiled top, with
a Dutch sentence upon it; and over all, high above one's head, a narrow
mantleshelf, filled with shining brass candlesticks, pipe lighters, and
tinderboxes. Then see, in one end of the room, three pine tables; in
the other, a closet and a deal dresser. The latter is filled with mugs,
dishes, pipes, tankards, earthen and glass bottles, and is guarded at
one end by a brass-hooped keg standing upon long legs. Everything is dim
with tobacco smoke, but otherwise as clean as soap and sand can make it.

Next, picture two sleepy, shabby-looking men, in wooden shoes, seated
near the glowing fireplace, hugging their knees and smoking short,
stumpy pipes; Mynheer Kleef walking softly and heavily about, clad in
leather knee breeches, felt shoes, and a green jacket wider than it
is long; then throw a heap of skates in the corner and put six tired
well-dressed boys, in various attitudes, upon the wooden chairs, and
you will see the coffee room of the Red Lion just as it appeared at nine
o'clock upon the evening of December 6, 184--. For supper, gingerbread
again, slices of Dutch sausage, rye bread sprinkled with anise seed,
pickles, a bottle of Utrecht water, and a pot of very mysterious coffee.
The boys were ravenous enough to take all they could get and pronounce
it excellent. Ben made wry faces, but Jacob declared he had never eaten
a better meal. After they had laughed and talked awhile, and counted
their money by way of settling a discussion that arose concerning their
expenses, th