go Hans Brinker

magistrate going to visit a lady of Amsterdam. A stout Hol-
land lass opened the door, and told him in a breath that the
lady was at home, and that his shoes were not very clean.

 

GREASING SLED-RUNNERS WITH AN OILED RAG.

Without another word, she took the astonished man up by both
arms, threw him across her back, carried him through two
rooms, set him down at the bottom of the stairs, seized a pair
of slippers that stood there, and put them upon his feet. “Then,
and not until then, she spoke, telling him that her mistress was
on the floor above, and that he might go up.

While Ben was skating with his friends upon the crowded
canals of the city, he found it difficult to believe that the
sleepy Dutchmen he saw around him, smoking their pipes so
leisurely, and looking as though their hats might be knocked
off their heads without their making any resistance, were capa-
ble of those outbreaks that had taken place in Holland; that
they were really fellow-countrymen of the brave, devoted
heroes of whom he had read in Dutch history.