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 that means Van Prinsterer lived here, Bosch?" "Yass, dot vas it." "And who was he?" "He vas--wol, he vos a Member of de Barliaments." "Was he celebrated?" "Celebrated? oh, yaas!" "What did he _do_?" (I think MERTON gets this in.) "Do?" says BOSCH, quite indignantly, "he nefer do _nodings_!" BOSCH takes me into the Fishmarket, when he directs my attention to a couple of very sooty live storks, who are pecking about at the refuse. "Dose pirts are shtorks; hier dey vas oblige to keep alvays two shtorks for de arms of de Haag. Vhen de yong shtorks porn, de old vons vas kill." SANDFORD shocked--MERTON sceptical. "Keel dem? Oh, yaas, do anytings mit dem ven dey vas old," says BOSCH, and adds:--"Ve haf de breference mit de shtorks, eh?" What _is_ he driving at? "Yaas--ven _ve_ vas old ve vas nod kill." This reminds BOSCH--BARLOW-like--of an anecdote. "Dere vas a vrent to me," he begins, "he com and say to me, 'Bosch, I am god so shtout and my bark is so dick, I can go no more on my lacks--vat vas I do?' To him I say, 'Wol, I dell you vat I do mit you--I dake you at de booshair to be cot op; I tink you vas make vary goot shdeak-meat!" Wonder whether this is a typical sample of BOSCH'S _badinage_. "What did he say to that, Bosch?" "Oh, he vas vair moch loff, a-course!" says BOSCH, with the natural complacency of a successful humorist. We go into the Old Prison, and see some horrible implements of torture, which seem to exhilarate BOSCH. "Lokeer!" he says, "Dis vas a pinition" (BOSCH for "punishment") "mit a can. Dey lie de man down and vasten his foots, and efery dime he vas shdrook mit de can, he jomp op and hit his vorehaid.... Hier dey lie down de beoples on de back, and pull dis shdring queeck, and all dese tings go roundt, and preak deir bones. Ven de pinition was feenish you vas det." He shows where the Water-torture was practised. "Nottice 'ow de vater vas vork a 'ole in de tile," he chuckles, "I tink de tile vas vary hardt det, eh?" Then he points out a pole with a spiked prong. "Tief-catcher--put 'em in de tief's nack--and get 'im!" Before a grim-looking cauldron he halts appreciatively. "You know vat dat vas for?" he says. "Dat vas for de blode-foots; put 'em in dere, yaas, and light de vire onderneat."