putting his arm through Dirk's
he pressed it in a peculiar fashion that caused him to start and look
round. "Hush!" muttered Brant, "not here," and they began to talk of
their late companions and the game of cards which they had played,
an amusement as to the propriety of which Dirk intimated that he had
doubts.

Young Brant shrugged his shoulders. "Cousin," he said, "we live in the
world, so it is as well to understand the world. If the risking of a
few pieces at play, which it will not ruin us to lose, helps us to
understand it, well, for my part I am ready to risk them, especially as
it puts us on good terms with those who, as things are, it is wise we
should cultivate. Only, cousin, if I may venture to say it, be careful
not to take more wine than you can carry with discretion. Better lose a
thousand florins than let drop one word that you cannot remember."

"I know, I know," answered Dirk, thinking of Lysbeth's supper, and at
the door of his lodgings they parted.

Like most Netherlanders, when Dirk made up his mind to do anything he
did it thoroughly. Thus, having undertaken to give a dinner party, he
determined to give a good dinner. In ordinary circumstances his first
idea would have been to consult his cousins, Clara and Lysbeth. After
that monstrous story about the sleighing, however, which by inquiry from
the coachman of the house, whom he happened to meet, he ascertained to
be perfectly false, this, for the young man had some pride, he did not
feel inclined to do. So in place of it he talked first to his landlady,
a worthy dame, and by her advice afterwards with the first innkeeper of
Leyden, a man of resource and experience. The innkeeper, well knowing
that this customer would pay for anything which he ordered, threw
himself into the affair heartily, with the result that by five o'clock
relays of cooks and other attendants were to be seen streaming up Dirk's
staircase, carrying every variety of dish that could be supposed to
tempt the appetite of high-class cavaliers.

Dirk's apartment consisted of two rooms situated upon the first floor
of an old house in a street that had ceased to be fashionable. Once,
however, it had been a fine house, and, according to the ideas of the
time, the rooms themselves were fine, especially the sitting chamber,
which was oak-panelled, low, and spacious, with a handsome fireplace
carrying the arms of its builder. Out of it opened his sleeping
room--which had no other doorwa