The interior was in perfect keeping with the designation of the building: every appliance that could suggest ease, if not sleep, was there; the chairs were deep, plethoric-looking, Dutch chairs, that seemed as if they had led a sedentary life, and throve upon it; the table was a short, thick-legged one, of dark oak, whose polished surface reflected the tall brass cups, and the ample features of Mynheer, and seemed to hob-nob with him when he lifted the capacious vessel to his lips; the walls were decorated with quaint pipes, whose large porcelain bowls bespoke them of home origin; and here and there a sea-fight, with a Dutch three-decker hurling destruction on the enemy. But the genius of the place was its owner, who, in a low fur cap and slippers, whose shape and size might have drawn tears of envy from the Ballast Board, sat gazing upon the canal in a state of Dutch rapture, very like apoplexy. He motioned me to a chair without speaking--he directed me to a pipe, by a long whiff of smoke from his own--he grunted out a welcome, and then, as if overcome by such unaccustomed exertion, he lay back in his chair, and sighed deeply. We smoked till the sun went down, and a thicker haze, rising from the stagnant ditch, joined with the tobacco vapour, made an atmosphere, like mud reduced to gas. Through the mist, I saw a vision of soup tureens, hot meat, and smoking vegetables. I beheld as though Mynheer moved among the condiments, and I have a faint dreamy recollection of his performing some feat before me; but whether it was carving, or the sword exercise, I won’t be positive. Now, though the schiedam was strong, a spell was upon me, and I could not speak; the great green eyes that glared on me through the haze, seemed to chill my very soul; and I drank, out of desperation, the deeper. As the evening wore on, I waxed bolder: I had looked upon the Dutchman so long, that my awe of him began to subside, and I at last grew bold enough to address him. I remember well, it was pretty much with that kind of energy, that semi- desperation, with which a man nerves himself to accost a spectre, that I ventured on addressing him: how or in what terms I did it, heaven knows! Some trite every-day observation about his great knowledge of life--his wonderful experience of the world, was all I could muster; and when I had made it, the sound of my own voice terrified me so much, that I finished the can at a draught, to reanimate my courage.