most, a raising of the hand, seemed to be all the
signal necessary. Entire loads of cheeses or herrings are pitched from
cart or canalboat into the warehouses without a word; but the passerby
must take his chance of being pelted, for a Dutchman seldom looks before
or behind him while engaged at work.

Poor Jacob Poot, who seemed destined to bear all the mishaps of the
journey, was knocked nearly breathless by a great cheese, which a fat
Dutchman was throwing to a fellow laborer, but he recovered himself, and
passed on without evincing the least indignation. Ben professed great
sympathy upon the occasion, but Jacob insisted that it was "notting."

"Then why did you screw your face so when it hit you?"

"What for screw mine face?" repeated Jacob soberly. "Vy, it vash
de--de--"

"That what?" insisted Ben maliciously.

"Vy, de-de-vat you call dis, vat you taste mit de nose?"

Ben laughed. "Oh, you mean the smell."

"Yesh. Dat ish it," said Jacob eagerly. "It wash de shmell. I draw mine
face for dat!"

"Ha! ha!" roared Ben. "That's a good one. A Dutch boy smell a cheese!
You can never make me believe THAT!"

"Vell, it ish no matter," replied Jacob, trudging on beside Ben in
perfect good humor. "Vait till you hit mit cheese--dat ish all."

Soon he added pathetically, "Penchamin, I no likes to be call Tuch--dat
ish no goot. I bees a Hollander."

Just as Ben was apologizing, Lambert hailed him.

"Hold up! Ben, here is the fish market. There is not much to be seen at
this season. But we can take a look at the storks if you wish."

Ben knew that storks were held in peculiar reverence in Holland and
that the bird figured upon the arms of the capital. He had noticed
cart wheels placed upon the roofs of Dutch cottages to entice storks to
settle upon them; he had seen their huge nests, too, on many a thatched
gable roof from Broek to The Hague. But it was winter now. The nests
were empty. No greedy birdlings opened their mouths--or rather their
heads--at the approach of a great white-winged thing, with outstretched
neck and legs, bearing a dangling something for their breakfast. The
long-bills were far away, picking up food on African shores, and before
they would return in the spring, Ben's visit to the land of dikes would
be over.

Therefore he pressed eagerly forward, as Van Mounen led the way through
the fish market, anxious to see if storks in Holland were anything
like the melancholy specimens he had seen in th