Built in 1620, this inn of the Holland Arms--so the mildewed brick in the keystone over the arch of the doorway says--and once the home of a Dutchman made rich by the China trade, whose ships cast anchor where Fop Smit's steamboats now tie up (I have no interest in the Line); a grimy, green-moulded, lean-over front and moss-covered, sloping-roof sort of an inn, with big beams supporting the ceilings of the bedrooms; lumbering furniture blackened with the smoke of a thousand pipes flanking the walls of the coffee-room; bits of Delft a century old lining the mantel; tiny panes of glass with here and there a bull's-eye illumining the squat windows; rows of mugs with pewter tops crowding the narrow shelves beside the fireplace, and last, and by no means least, a big, bulky sun-moon-and-stars clock, with one eye always open, which strikes the hours as if it meant to beat the very life out of them. But there is something more in this coffee-room--something that neither Mynheer Boudier of the Bellevue nor any other landlord in any other hostelry, great or small, up and down the Maas, can boast. This is the coffee-room picture gallery--free to whoever comes. It began with a contribution from the first impecunious painter in payment of an overdue board-bill, his painting being hung on a nail beside the clock. Now; all over the walls--above the sideboard with its pewter plates and queer mugs; over the mantel holding the Delft, and between the squat windows--are pinned, tacked, pasted and hung--singly and in groups--sketches in oil, pastel, water color, pencil and charcoal, many without frames and most of them bearing the signature of some poor, stranded painter, preceded by the suggestive line, "To my dear friend, the landlord"--silent reminders all of a small cash balance which circumstances quite beyond their control had prevented their liquidating at the precise hour of their departure. Mynheer had bowed and smiled as each new contribution was handed him and straightway had found a hammer and a nail and up it went beside its fellows. He never made objection: the more the merrier. The ice wind would soon blow across the Maas from Papendrecht, the tall grasses in the marshes turn pale with fright, and the lace-frost with busy fingers pattern the tiny panes, and then Johann would pack the kits one after another, and the last good-byes take place. But the sketches would remain. Oh! yes, the sketches would remain and tell the story of the summer and every night new mugs would be filled around the coal-fire, and new pipes lighted--mugs and pipes of the TOWNSPEOPLE this time, who came to feast their eyes,--and, although the summer was gone, the long winter would still be his. No, Mynheer never objected!