For the next two hours, it was merely a repetition of the performance which preceded it, in which the host’s part was played with untiring energy, and all the items of soup, fish, _bouilli_, fowl, pork, and vegetables, had not to complain of any inattention to their merits, or any undue preference for their predecessors, of an hour before. If the traveller was astonished at his appetite during the first table, what would he say to his feats at the second? As for myself, I honestly confess I thought that some harlequin trick was concerned, and that mine host of the “Schwein Kopf” was not a real man, but some mechanical contrivance by which, with a trapdoor below him, a certain portion of the dinner was conveyed to the apartments beneath. I lived, however, to discover my error; and after four visits to Rotterdam, was at length so far distinguished as actually to receive an invitation to pass an evening with “Mynheer” in his own private den, which, I need scarcely say, I gladly accepted. I have a note of that evening some where--ay, here it is--“Mynheer is waiting supper,” said a waiter to me, as I sat smoking my cigar, one calm evening in autumn, in the porch of the “Schwein Kopf.” I followed the man through a long passage, which, leading to the kitchen, emerged on the opposite side, and conducted us through a little garden to a small summer-house. The building, which was of wood, was painted in gaudy stripes of red, blue, and yellow, and made in some sort to resemble those Chinese pagodas, we see upon a saucer. Its situation was conceived in the most perfect Dutch taste--one side, flanked by the little garden of which I have spoken, displayed a rich bed of tulips and ranunculuses, in all the gorgeous luxuriance of perfect culture--it was a mass of blended beauty, and perfume, superior to any thing I have ever witnessed. On the other flank, lay the sluggish, green-coated surface, of a Dutch canal, from which rose the noxious vapours of a hot evening, and the harsh croakings of ten thousand frogs, “fat, gorbellied knaves,” the very burgomasters of their race, who squatted along the banks, and who, except for the want of pipes, might have been mistaken for small Dutchmen enjoying an evening’s promenade. This building was denominated “Lust und Rust,” which, in letters of gold, was displayed on something resembling a sign-board, above the door, and intimated to the traveller, that the temple was dedicated to pleasure, and contentment. To a Dutchman, however, the sight of the portly figure, who sat smoking at the open window, was a far more intelligible illustration of the objects of the building, than any lettered inscription. Mynheer Hoogendorp, with his long Dutch pipe, and tall flagon, with its shining brass lid, looked the concentrated essence of a Hollander, and might have been hung out, as a sign of the country, from the steeple of Haarlem.