ur and a half per cent, for "commission;" and I went away, and
spent my money like a gentleman, mostly in the grog-shops down by
Greenwich Street. You may be sure that when it was all gone I didn't go
for any more to my high and mighty brother, Mynheer Van Daal. No, no; I
went down to the wharf, and shipped on board a brigantine bound for New
Orleans. I heard afterward that my brother the banker, with his
messmates, Peanut the Yankee and McCute the Scotchman, all went to Davy
Jones's locker--that is to say, they were bankrupt, and paid nobody.
Now, I should like to know which of us was in the right? If I
squandered my hundred and fifty dollars (less the four and a half per
cent, for commission--and be hanged to that mouldy old Nipcheese, with
his copper shovel!), it was, at least, my own cash, and I had worked
hard for it; but here were my fine banker-brother and his partners, who
go and spend a lot of money--more than I ever heard of--that belonged to
other people!

I was the third son. There was a fourth, called Cornelius, but he died
when he was a baby. Then came three girls--Betje, Lotje, and Barbet.
Lotje was a steady girl, who married a ship chandler at Rotterdam. He
died poor, however, and left her with a lot of children. I am very fond
of the yunkers, and try to be as kind to them (although I am such a
crusty old fellow) as I can. Betje was a pretty girl, but too flighty,
and a great deal too fond of dancing at kermesses. She died before she
was eighteen of a consumption which was brought on, I fancy, more by her
going out in silk stockings and thin shoes to dance at a kermesse at the
Loost Gardens of the Three Herrings at Scheveningen, than by anything
else. For ours is a damp country, where there is more mud than solid
earth, and more water than either; and you should take care to go as
thickly shod as you can. But in winter time all is hard and firm; and
with a good pair of skates to your heels, a good pipe of tobacco in your
mouth (though I like a quid better), and a good flask of Schiedam in
your pocket, there's no fear of your catching cold. Unfortunately, my
poor Lotje could not smoke, and liked sweetmeats better than schnapps;
and so, with the aid of those confounded silk stockings and
dancing-pumps, she must needs die, and be buried in the graveyard of the
Oude Sant Niklas Kerke. It nearly broke my poor mother's heart, and my
father's, too; although he was somewhat of a hard man, whose hear