Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original illustrations. See 14745-h.htm or 14745-h.zip: (http://www.ibiblio.org/gutenberg/1/4/7/4/14745/14745-h/14745-h.htm) or (http://www.ibiblio.org/gutenberg/1/4/7/4/14745/14745-h.zip) PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI VOL. 102 June 18, 1892 THE COURIER OF THE HAGUE. (_BY THE "VACUUS VIATOR."_) He is an elderly amiable little Dutchman in a soft felt hat; his name is BOSCH, and he is taking me about. _Why_ I engaged him I don't quite know--unless from a general sense of helplessness in Holland, and a craving for any kind of companionship. Now I have got him, I feel rather more helpless than ever--a sort of composite of _Sandford_ and _Merton_, with a didactic, but frequently incomprehensible _Dutch Barlow_. My _Sandford_ half would like to exhibit an intelligent curiosity, but is generally suppressed by _Merton_, who has a morbid horror of useful information. Not that BOSCH is remarkably erudite, but nevertheless he contrives to reduce me to a state of imbecility, which I catch myself noting with a pained surprise. There is a statue in the Plein, and the _Sandford_ element in me finds a satisfaction in recognising it aloud as WILLIAM the Silent. It is--but, as my _Merton_ part thinks, a fellow _would_ be a fool if he didn't recognise WILLIAM after a few hours in Holland--his images, in one form or another, are tolerably numerous. Still, BOSCH is gratified. "Yass, dot is ole VOLLIAM," he says, approvingly, as to a precocious infant just beginning to take notice. "Lokeer," he says, "you see dot Apoteek?" He indicates a chemist's shop opposite, with nothing remarkable about it externally, except a Turk's head with his tongue out over the door. "Yes, I, speaking for _Sandford_ and _Merton_, see it--has it some historical interest--did VOLLIAM get medicine there, or what?" "Woll, dis mornin dare vas two sairvans dere, and de von cot two blaces out of de odder's haid, and afderwarts he go opstairs and vas hang himself mit a pedbost," BOSCH evidently rather proud of this as illustrating the liveliness of The Hague. "Was he mad?" "Yass, he vas mard, mit a vife and seeks childrens." "No, but was he out of his senses?" "I tink it vas oud of Omsterdam he vas com," says BOSCH. "But how did it happen?" "Wol-sare, de broprietor vas die, and leaf de successor de pusiness, and he dells him in von mons he will go, begause he nod egsamin to be a Chimigal--so he do it, and dey dake him to de hosbital, and I tink _he_ vas die too by now!" adds BOSCH, cheerfully. Very sad affair evidently--but a little complicated. _Sandford_ would like to get to the bottom of it, but _Merton_ convinced there is _no_ bottom. So, between us, subject allowed to drop. _Sandford_ (now in the ascendant again) notices, as the clever boy, inscription on house-front, "Hier woonden GROEN VAN PRINSTERER, 1838-76." "I suppose