oetspoelen, brother Ludwig? A
month in jail is punishment enough."

The landlord's daughter had left the room. She now ran in, holding up a
pair of huge wooden shoes. "See, father," she cried, "here are his great
ugly boats. It's the man that we put in the next room after the young
masters went to bed. Ah! It was wrong to send the poor young gentlemen
up here so far out of sight and sound."

"The scoundrel!" hissed the landlord. "He has disgraced my house. I go
for the police at once!"

In less than fifteen minutes two drowsy-looking officers were in the
room. After telling Mynheer Kleef that he must appear early in the
morning with the boys and make his complaint before a magistrate, they
marched off with their prisoner.

One would think the captain and his band could have slept no more that
night, but the mooring has not yet been found that can prevent youth and
an easy conscience from drifting down the river of dreams. The boys were
much too fatigued to let so slight a thing as capturing a robber bind
them to wakefulness. They were soon in bed again, floating away to
strange scenes made of familiar things. Ludwig and Carl had spread their
bedding upon the floor. One had already forgotten the voetspoelen,
the race--everything; but Carl was wide-awake. He heard the carillons
ringing out their solemn nightly music and the watchman's noisy clapper
putting in discord at the quarter hours; he saw the moonshine glide away
from the window and the red morning light come pouring in, and all the
while he kept thinking, Pooh! what a goose I have made of myself!

Carl Schummel, alone, with none to look or to listen, was not quite so
grand a fellow as Carl Schummel strutting about in his boots.

Before the Court

You may believe that the landlord's daughter bestirred herself to
prepare a good meal for the boys next morning. Mynheer had a Chinese
gong that could make more noise than a dozen breakfast bells. Its
hideous reveille, clanging through the house, generally startled the
drowsiest lodgers into activity, but the maiden would not allow it to be
sounded this morning.

"Let the brave young gentlemen sleep," she said to the greasy kitchen
boy. "They shall be warmly fed when they awaken."

It was ten o'clock when Captain Peter and his band came straggling down
one by one.

"A pretty hour," said mine host, gruffly. "It is high time we were
before the court. Fine business, this, for a respectable inn. You will