of solemn countenance,
holding in both hands a noble Nougat Tart--the historic, the
indispensable Nougat Tart. Then, with a measured trot that swung and
balanced with the music, followed the Napkins, wound turban-fashion
round the heads of their wearers, and floating like white banners with
the breeze of motion. First came a Paranymph thus adorned, then the
learned Doctor holding fast to the leader's coat-tails; behind him the
second Paranymph, and clinging to his coat the hero's father, with the
whole procession of turbaned friends tailing after.

They swept by us as a comet sweeps down the sky, and concerned
themselves with our group against the wall no more than a comet does
with such humble stars, dusting the outskirts of the Milky Way, as
shrink from his fiery path.

"A vision of goblins," said the Mariner, when he had got his breath.

"What fun! But why do they do it?" asked Miss Rivers.

"Why? I'm sure I don't know," I laughed, "except because they always
have, and I suppose always will, while there's a university at Leiden.
That's all we'll see, but it isn't all there is to see. By-and-by the
procession will go prancing back to the Club, where the next thing will
be to get over the big reading-table, then over the buffet of the bar,
without once breaking the chain of coat-tails, through passages and
kitchens to the club-room once more, where the chain will be split up,
but where the chairs in which the men will sit to drink champagne and
eat the Nougat Tart, must be _on_ the tables and not round them."

"And will that be the end?" inquired the Chaperon, who ever thirsts with
ardor for information.

"Not nearly," said I. "The third part of dinner will be due, and every
one's bound to eat it, even those whose chairs have fallen off from the
pyramids of small tables, and whose heads or bones have suffered.
They'll have dessert; and at dawn the best men will be taking a country
drive."

"I begin to understand," said Starr, "how your people exhausted the
Spaniards. Good heavens, you could wear out the Rock of Gibraltar! And I
see why, though you can eat all day and all night too, you don't put on
fat like your German cousins."

"When we begin a thing, we Dutchmen see it through," I replied
modestly.

"So do we Americans," remarked Miss Van Buren.

"I wonder which would win if the two interests were opposed?" I
hazarded, a propos of nothing--or of much.

"I should bet on America," said she.

"I _don't_