Conceive the Laquais de Place of the old
Hoogen Mogen days, respectfully restoring
the change out of Monsieur's guilderpiece,
protesting that Monsieur must be mad
to think of pressing on him more than he
was entitled to! Conceive a waiter, as the
guest is stepping out after his mails and
remembering the servitors, conjuring the
Herr to wait only one second until he got
change; the Herr having given a quarter-
guilder, or fivepence too much. Conceive—
and most difficult of all things in the world
to conceive— a driver of the hackney-coach
of those days, a machine in build like a lord
mayor's carriage, hung low, and all down
behind, with his cocked hat off, remonstrating
tenderly with the fare for his overpay; perhaps
casting about for a schout, or politieman, to
take Monsieur securely to the nearest asylum
for persons of unsound mind. Such things
shall come about towards the Millennium.

I would commend to the writer of The
Sweets the following little fact: Wandering
through the town of La Haye one morning,
and getting lost in certain unsavoury lanes,
it was only natural to cast about for some
intelligent being, skilled in foreign tongues,
who should direct me conveniently to the
open square known as the Platz Mauritz,
hard by to which was my own particular
caravanserai. An individual in new black,
eminently respectable, and something higher
than the grade of a notary-public, might have
been descried, crossing the street (lane, that
is), picking his steps with infinite pains.
Here is my man, I whisper to myself,
exultingly; and proceed to stop on the
Dutch King's highway the individual in new
black. He speaks French marvellously well,
is very gracious, and I can observe a tinge of
pity in his tones for the stranger alone in a
foreign land, and who has lost his way in a
strange city. Just a step further on, and let
Monsieur take the first turning to the right,
nothing more simple. Nothing more simple,
the new black curving itself into the letter
C, many times over. Stay, he will just show
Monsieur the turning himself:—and picks
his steps a few perches on, to the mouth of
the turning; where, sure enough, I can see
afar off, the great Platz opening out, and the
effigy of Mauritz astride upon a bronze
quadruped. When, as I take off my hat to the
shiny black notary-public, I discover that its
hand is stretched out, not for affectionate
interchange of grasp after the British fashion,
but with undisguised sordid purpose. I
wrap my garment about me and depart in
the direction of Mauritz and his brazen beast,
catching, as I go, sounds of execration, not
loud, but deep. This adventure contrasts
not refreshingly with another of lost way in
a strange town, only in the sprightly
land of mirth and social ease— in bare,
bleak Calais. Straying negligently here
and there, taking turns and alleys that lead
out of the open square where sand seems
blowing eternally in men's eyes at each of
the cardinal points; and being invariably
brought out again unexpectedly, on the open
square, it entered into my head to make out
that famous hostel, where the late Reverend
Mr. Sterne, travelling sentimentally, had
once put up, and in whose court had lain tor
four months that vamped-up chaise—that little
carriage, the désobligeant— which had been
twice taken to pieces on Mount Senis.
Going out of the square, by a lane on the
right, was only sure to bring me in again by
a lane to the left. At last, in some by-place,
finding before me the open door of a money-
changer, notary, and house-agent, for there
were marks and tokens of all these professions,
I enter, desiring information, of several gentlemen,
doing scrivenery on very large sheets,
concerning the late Mr. Sterne's hotel.
Instant setting aside of his scrivenery by
one of the professional gentlemen ('Tis a
pity, an't, please your Honor, said Trim, he
were not a Field-Marshal, on account of
those moustaches of his)—instant leaping
from off his stool. He stands out at the
door, and points, and postures, and
gesticulates— first this lane, then that tour,
—then to the right—to the left, and le
Voilà! Whereby seeing that I gather
nought but mystification, he goes in again
for a card of the establishment on whose
blank side he lays out neatly, a ground plan
of the principal streets—Grand Place and all
—with M. Dessein's Hotel brought out in red
ink, so as to catch the eye. This he puts into
my hand, and then, all hatless as he is, goes
out with me to the top of the street to start
me, and so disappears without waiting for
thanks. I sometimes fancy he must have
come of the same stock as that gentle monk
of St. Francis, who exchanged snuff-boxes
with the Rev. Mr. Sterne.

But, for that other gentleman in the streets
of La Haye. Travellers who have come
that way, seem to have seen the like of
him, and to have departed in dissatisfied
moods, casting the dust from off their shoes.
Terrible Scaliger, running a muck at every
person and everything, contrived to have a
word for him,— a desperate stroke of that
thorny, rasping side of his tongue. He
had sojourned long in Leyden city, doing
professor's work. And yet this was the
sum—small enough— of his estimation:
"They are villanously ungrateful," he says,
in that curious Patois Book, the Scaligerana
—sont vilainement ingratis. " Fathers
and sons make their bargains in writing with
each other, not trusting each other. There
are some good folk, after all, in this country;
but there is no spot in the world that cries
out more for the judgments of Heaven."

Gentle Goldsmith came that road, journeying
to Leyden also, and likens a Dutchman's
house to a temple dedicated to an ox. Even
my little Dutchwoman could not bring him
over, though, at this period of his life, he