ont legs at least must be regular, and the two back
legs regular. A chair is a small matter. But proceed to a grander
subject--a city. If every house is similar to its neighbours, if every
street is parallel to the rest, the effect is bad; regularity here is
disagreeable. This is a deep subject requiring much study and
philosophical inquiry. If I were to go farther into it, our friend Fred
Temple's adventures would have to be cast overboard. I will, therefore,
cut it short with the remark that the subject is well worthy the
attention of even deeper-thinking men than are ever likely to read this
book.

When the three friends, Temple, Grant, and Sorrel, found themselves in
the quaint old city of Bergen their first thought was _supper_; their
second thought _bed_.

Now this may seem to some minds a dreadfully low and contemptible state
of things. "What!" a romantic reader may exclaim, "they had arrived in
that celebrated city, from which in days of old the stalwart Vikings
used to issue on their daring voyages, in which the descendants of these
grand fellows still dwell, and in which are interesting memorials of the
past and quaint evidences of the present. Did your heroes, Temple,
Sorrel, and Grant, think of supper and of bed when their feet for the
first time trod the soil of Old Norway?"

Even so! Romantic reader, I am bound to tell you that romance is all
very well in its way, but it has no power whatever over an empty stomach
or an exhausted brain.

When our three friends landed in Bergen it was past midnight. Their
admiration of the scenery had induced them to neglect supper and to defy
sleep, so that when they landed they felt more than half inclined to
fall upon their boatman and eat him up alive, and then to fall down on
the stone pier and go off to sleep at once.

In this frame of mind and body they entered the house of Madame Sontoom,
and called for supper.

Madame Sontoom was the owner of a private hotel. Moreover, she was the
owner of a plump body and a warm heart. Consequently, she at once
became a mother to all who were fortunate enough to dwell under her
roof.

Her hotel was by no means like to a hotel in this country. It was more
like a private residence. There were no hired waiters. Her amiable
daughters waited; and they did not look upon you as a customer, or
conduct themselves like servants. No, they treated you as a visitor,
and conducted themselves with the agreeable familiari