or, The Silver Skates 239

working stork mother or father, bringing up a troublesome
family on the roof of a rickety old building, where flapping
windmills frightened them half to death every time they
ventured forth on a frolic!

Ben soon made up his mind, and rightly too, that the Hague
with its fine streets and public parks, shaded with elms, was
a magnificent city. The prevailing costume was like that of
London or Paris; and his British ears were many a time
cheered by the music of British words. “The shops were
different in many respects from those on Oxford Street and
the Strand; but they often were illumined by a printed
announcement that English was “spoken within.” Others
proclaimed themselves to have London Stout for sale, and one
actually claimed to be able to regale its customers with English
roast beef.

Over every possible shop-door
was the never-failing placard, Ta-
bak de Koop (“tobacco to be sold”’).
Instead of colored glass globes in
the windows, or high jars of leech-
es, the drug stores had a gaping
Turk’s head at the entrance; or,
if the establishment were particu- ~.
larly fine, a wooden mandarin
entire, indulging in a full yawn.

Some of these queer faces
amused Ben exceedingly : they
seemed to have just swallowed a
dose of physic ; but Van Mounen
declared he could not see anything
funny about them. A druggist A GAPER.