or, The Silver Skates 99

“ Tell him about the tulips !”

Ben caught the word tulpen.

“Oh, yes!” said he, eagerly, in English. ‘“ The tulip mania
— are you speaking of that? I have often heard it mentioned,
but know very little about it. It reached its height in Amster-
dam, didn’t it?”

Ludwig moaned. The words were hard to understand; but
there was no mistaking the enlightened expression on Ben’s
face. Lambert, happily, was quite unconscious of his young
countryman’s distress as he replied, —

“Yes, here and in Haarlem, principally ; but the excitement
ran high all over Holland, and in England, too, for that
matter.”

“« Hardly in England,? I think,” said Ben; “but I am not
sure, as I was not
there at the time.”

“ Ha, ha! that’s
true, unless you are
over two hundred
years old. Well, I
tell you, sir, there
was never anything
like it before nor
since. Why, per-

 

sons were so crazy
after tulip-bulbs in
those days that they paid their weight in gold for them.”

THE TULIPS IN BLOOM.

1 Although the tulip mania did not prevail in England as in Holland,
the flower soon became an object of speculation, and brought very large
prices. In 1636, tulips were publicly sold on the Exchange of London.
Even as late as 1800, a common price was fifteen guineas for one bulb.