26

CHAPTER II.

FROM VULGAR VENICE," BY EMERICK AND

UTRECHT, TO COLOGNE, IN PRUSSIA.

"I DON'T see much to hurrah about, because we are in Holland," the M. I. C. remarked, somewhat tartly, when the stout gentleman had ceased cheering. "The Dutch were here before us, I believe; and those pretty girls (Fawn and sister) are turning round to stare at you. Pray be reasonable, if you

can.

Now, the man with the iron chest's mode of landing in Holland had not at all resembled the grandiose arrival of Cæsar in Britain, or of William of Orange at Torbay. It had offered a far greater similarity to the manner in which that other William -the Conqueror-landed, according to report, on the Sussex coast. For he stumbled on crossing the plank from the custom-house barge to the quay; and, I grieve to tell it, first saluted the soil of Holland with his nose. Picking himself up, and rubbing that abraded member-which was redder than ever—in a rueful manner, it did not tend to restore his equanimity to see his stout friend thus rejoicing. As for the slim gentleman, he had frequently complained, when on board the Batavier, of not being able to find his sea-legs, and now he seemed equally unable to find his land ones, lurching and shambling about, and holding on to imaginary bulwarks in a very undecided manner.

At this juncture the stout gentleman was taken into custody. Not by the soldiery, or by the emis

saries of the Burgomaster of Rotterdam, nor by some wary detective policeman sent by special steamer to catch him alive as the stout proprietor of some fat bank which had turned out to be a corpulent swindle. No; the stout gentleman was as free from guilt as the Man of Ross, or M. de Voltaire's Huron. But he was captured, nevertheless, by a detachment of little round-faced, square-built boys, attired very much in the fashion of the London shoeblacks-not the parti-coloured "brigade" boys, who brush during the day, and attend beautiful lectures with dissolving views at night; but the little irregulars, flying in rags, who take to shoeblacking as a relief from crossing-sweeping, as an attractive from starving, and a preservation from thieving. These Batavian Bedouins seized bodily on the stout gentleman, and made him at once the captive of their brushes and blacking bottles. Each foot had soon its attendant imp, brushing away at it till the stout gentleman's corns became incandescent; two more set to work (let us hope with clothes brushes innocent of Day and Martin's "sootpots," as blacking is called by Mr. Carlyle) to warm the marrow of his abundant dorsal vertebræ; a cohort hovered round his voluminous person, with difficulty only restrained from blacking the famous courier bag, and breathing upon and polishing to extreme brilliance the stout one's black kid gloves. But thy tutelary genius was there, O Houbigant-Chardin! whose "eight and three quarters" are four and sixpence per pair, and the profanation was prevented. The stout gentleman, whom I fully believe to possess confidence equal to that of Lord John Russell-a little man, but said to be ready to undertake the command of the Channel Fleet, and to perform the operation for the stoneand who, for his (stout) part, I thoroughly believe, would gleefully have consented to write a five-act tragedy, ride upon a rhinoceros, sing Rode's air with variations, eat a leg of mutton and a pound of candles

for a wager, square the circle, discover the longitude, and go into training to fight the champion of England for two hundred pounds a side and the belt :-the undaunted stout gentleman proved himself fully equal to this trying emergency. The shoeblacks at his feet had each their block. On the foot-shaped pedestal surmounting either block bravely stood up the stout gentleman. Wide apart stood his manly limbs, proud flashed his eye, beaming as Lesbia's famed in T. Moore's lyric. But he was as modest as great, and putting his hands in his vast pockets, cried, "Brush away, my pippins," at which a Low Dutch cheer arose from the ragged boys, and one, the linguist of the party, cast himself at his feet, crying, in imperfect accents:

“Oh, Anglish shantlemans, Anglish shilling give." "He looks like the Colossus of Rhodes," said the man with the iron chest, enthusiastically regarding the stout one.

"He looks like the sign of the 'Goat and Compasses,' "" said the slim one.

"The little ragamuffins know how to charge, however," remarked the stout gentleman, as he descended from his double pinnacle of glory. "Four young Dutchmen have made a demand of a shilling apiece.' "Give them a shilling amongst them," suggested the M. I. C.

"Give each boy a penny, and box the ears of the rest," was the stern advice of the slim gentleman—a man of business he, and the terror of cabmen.

The stout gentleman, however, concluded to split the difference; and flung a handful of English coppers among the shoeblack crowd, remarking that he could not box twenty boys' ears, but that the pennies might hit twenty boys' heads. The luggage being hoisted on a truck, of very Dutch construction, half-way between a wheelbarrow and a railway-truck, the travellers proceeded along the quay towards the hotel which the slim gentleman, who was quarter