individual who comes squeezing past me
from the interior, with many excuses,—no
doubt curious as to the quality of those
mails,—has driven me against the walls,
whitening me all over, as I find next morning.
No other than the landlord, not rubicund,
alack! nor robustious, nor unctuous,
but a little shrivelled mortal of Frenchified
petit-maître pattern. Yes, the landlord of
the Grey-headed Nobleman! At my service
with infinite respect, and in elementary
French. Presumes reverentially that
Mynheer has come off the Spoorweg? The Jan
will transport Mynheer's baggages to a chamber.
Jan!

All along the little reformatory gallery,
up a wee flight of five or six stairs of true
daisy or churn-scoured hue, round a little
twist into second model prison passage,
rubbing shoulders pleasantly with the wall, as I
do so, and I am before the door of
Mynheer's chamber. I have a private opinion
that this must have originally formed a
part of the model prison passage. It seems
much about the same width, and the furniture
has a narrow aspect also, constructed
apparently to be looked at, lengthways.
The bed is long, and a narrow chest of
drawers is long and narrow; and the chairs
lie in, curiously, to the wall. Of a sudden
there passes athwart me a strange soupçon
of an effluvia, something too horrible to
be admitted, and for a long time mentally
waved off and steadily ignored. Something
that I should have conceived utterly
impossible to be devised in that line of article.
Something new, terrible, and undreamed of.
It had obtruded itself faintly, just as I had
alighted from off the Spoorweg, imparting
a strange, sickening feel; and has now
followed me into this upper chamber, going
and returning periodically. Of which he
will learn more hereafter. A certain heavy
dampness in the linen of this establishment,
imparting to it that clinging ductility usually
found in the drapery of a lay figure—remedyless,
moreover; for the warming-pan, only
eliciting a warm steam instantly condenses
it in great drops—drives me to such
comfort as may be found in layers of plaid
and shawl carefully interposed. Then to
wait wearily for long dreams welcome and
refreshing.

Just on the verge of that mysterious
country, about the time when the furniture is
growing into queer misty shapes, and the droll
jumble of the day's events with grotesque
and inconsistent creatures is beginning, I
am rudely called back to earth by horrid
jangling—such jangling!—apparently just
over my head. Carillons disorderly, working
away pitilessly: creatures that never sleep
all the night long, and care not whom they
waken. Carillons of the great palace, round
the corner, now making ready to ring in
the hour. Hear the music of the bells, sang
a poor sot once on a time, what a world
of fancies their melody foretells! At any
other season perhaps: not when just come
off the Spoorweg. They should be stopped,
silenced, I cry, indignantly, as they resolve
themselves into a tune—a real tune—Mozartian,
Handelian, I care not which at any
rate, now impossible to say. For a stave
or so from the tune's close, another Carillon
hard-by begins, and others far and near all
over the city are getting into play, making
most horible discord. Vile hurly burly!
confusion! distraction! ten thousand Teufels!
What does all this mean? Is there conspiracy
in the town to murder sleep? Where are the
politie, as their vile jargon has it—yes the
politie? Where, indeed! I rise up, and look
towards the window, and find that there has
grown up in the street, a din and hum of many
voices, hitherto drowned by the jingle-jangle.
Hum of voices, say I? At this moment there
are half-a-dozen men full of wine coming
processionally down the street, and roaring,
in parts, at the top of their voices.
The whole town has discharged itself
into that street—giggling, laughing,
chattering like a thousand magpies, and calling
to each other from afar; this being, as
I am informed later, their promenade, or
Boulevard; and this being, of all other times
in the world, their choice season for recreation,
or délassement. I look down on the population
from my window with weary eyes, and
find them as thick as flies. Crowded together
are these Hollanders and Hollandaises,—
absolutely jostling each other to get through.
I look down for some moments curiously, and
go back to my lay-figure drapery, praying
heartily for their flying countryman to come
and take them off bodily in his ship. All
this while Carillons are at work periodically,
waking up every quarter-of-an-hour,
punctually. I liken them, with grim satisfaction,
to the dogs in a cur-infested neighbourhood,—
one dismal whine setting all the rest off in
full cry.

Still, in course of time, these nuisances
abate; the tramp of steps, and hum of voices,
die away sensibly, and I am getting something
used to the Carillons. Suddenly, when
everything has subsided into the stillness proper
to the small hours—in well-regulated towns,
that is—a rattle is sprung under the window,
making me start convulsively; and a hoarse
organ is heard to chaunt nasally that it is past
twelve o'clock, and a cloudy night in the Dutch
tongue, of course; a veritable fragment of a
vesper hymn—like the famous Ad Nos of the
Anabaptist brethren in the market-place—
very musical, and suggestive of Covent
Garden Opera memories, at any other season.
Again I am at the window, and find it to
be the politie making their round. Creatures
bearing on their ugly hats a brass decoration
much like the Following of the London
milk delivery company: on whom (on the
politie, that is) be eternal anathema for a
night of horrid dreams and broken slumber!