where the water was sluggish. I turned round, and I clenched my fist, and I shook it in the Emperor's face, and I swore by the bones of the Stadtholder that if I had but one grasp of his hand, I'd not perform that dance without a partner. Here I stood,' quoth he, 'and the Scheldt might be, as it were, there. I lifted my foot thus, and came down upon a large piece of floating ice, which the moment I touched it slipped away, and shot out into the stream.'

At this moment mynheer, who had been dramatising this portion of his adventure, came down upon the waxed floor with a plump that shook the pagoda to its centre; while I, who had during the narrative been working double tides at the schiedam, was so interested at the catastrophe that I thought he was really in the Scheldt, in the situation he was describing. The instincts of humanity were, I am proud to say, stronger in me than those of reason. I kicked off my shoes, threw away my coat, and plunged boldly after him. I remember well catching him by the throat, and I remember, too, feeling what a dreadful thing was the grip of a drowning man; for both his hands were on my neck, and he squeezed me fearfully. Of what happened after, the waiters or the Humane Society may know something. I only can tell that I kept my bed for four days; and when I next descended to the table d'hôte, I saw a large patch of black sticking-plaster across the bridge of old Hoogendorp's nose, and I never was a guest in 'Lust and Rust' afterwards.

The loud clanking of the table d'hôte bell roused me, as I lay dreaming of Frank Holbein and the yellow doublet. I dressed hastily, and descended to the saal. Everything was exactly as I left it ten years before, even to the cherry-wood pipe-stick that projected from mynheer's breeches-pocket; nothing was changed. The clatter of post-horses and the heavy rattle of wheels drew me to the window in time to see the alderman's carriage, with four posters, roll past; a kiss of the hand was thrown

me from the rumble. It was the Honourable Jack himself, who somehow had won their favour, and was already installed their travelling companion.

'It is odd enough,' thought I, as I arranged my napkin across my knee, 'what success lies in a well-curled whisker, particularly if the wearer be a fool.'

CHAPTER IV

MEMS. AND MORALISINGS

He who expects to find these 'Loiterings' of mine of any service as a guidebook to the Continent, or a voyager's manual, will be sorely disappointed. As well might he endeavour to devise a suit of clothes from the patches of cloth scattered about a tailor's shop; there might be, indeed, wherewithal to repair an old garment or make a penwiper, but no more. My fragments, too, of every shape and colour-sometimes showy and flaunting, sometimes a piece of hodden-grey or linsey-woolsey-are all I have to present to my friends. Whatever they be in shade or texture, whether fine or homespun, rich in Tyrian dye or stained with russet brown, I can only say for them, they are all my own-I have never cabbaged from any man's cloth.'

And now, to abjure decimals and talk like a unit of humanity, if you would know the exact distance between any two towns abroad, the best mode of reaching your destination, the most comfortable hotel to stop at when you have got there, who built the cathedral, who painted the altar-piece, who demolished the town in the year fifteen hundred and-fiddlestick - then take into your confidence the immortal John Murray; he can tell you all these, and much more; how many kreutzers make a groschen, how many groschen make a gulden, reconciling you to all the difficulties of travel by historic associations, memoirs of people who lived before the flood, and

learned dissertations on the etymology of the name of the town, which all your ingenuity can't teach you how to pronounce.

Well, it's a fine thing, to be sure, when your carriage breaks down in a chaussée with holes large enough to bury a dog, it's a great satisfaction to know that some ten thousand years previous, this place, that seems for all the world like a mountain torrent, was a Roman way. If the inn you sleep in be infested with every annoyance to which inns are liable-all that long catalogue of evils, from boors to bugs-never mind, there's sure to be some delightful story of a bloody murder connected with its annals, which will amply repay you for all your suffering.

And now, in sober seriousness, what literary fame equals John Murray's? What portmanteau, with two shirts and a nightcap, hasn't got one Handbook? What Englishman issues forth at morn without one beneath his arm? How naturally does he compare the voluble statement of his valet de place with the testimony of the book. Does he not carry it with him to church, where, if the sermon be slow, he can read a description of the building? Is it not his guide at table d'hôte, teaching him when to eat, and where to abstain? Does he look upon a building, a statue, a picture, an old cabinet, or a manuscript, with whose eyes does he see it? With John Murray's, to be sure! Let John tell him this town is famous for its mushrooms, why, he'll eat them till he becomes half a fungus himself; let him hear that it is celebrated for its lace manufactory or its iron-work, its painting on glass or its wigs, straightway he buys up all he can find, only to discover, on reaching home, that a London shopkeeper can undersell him in the same articles by about fifty per cent.

In all this, however, John Murray is not to blame; on the contrary, it only shows his headlong popularity, and the implicit trust with which is received every statement he makes. I cannot conceive anything more frightful than the sudden appearance of a work which should