he doffed his cap, and courteously saluting the stranger,
requested him to be seated.

The visitor waved his hand slightly, as, if in acknowledgment of the
courtesy, but remained standing.

'I have the honour to see Mynher Vanderhausen, of Rotterdam?' said
Gerard Douw.

'The same,' was the laconic reply of his visitant.

'I understand your worship desires to speak with me,' continued Douw,
'and I am here by appointment to wait your commands.'

'Is that a man of trust?' said Vanderhausen, turning towards Schalken,
who stood at a little distance behind his master.

'Certainly,' replied Gerard.

'Then let him take this box and get the nearest jeweller or goldsmith to
value its contents, and let him return hither with a certificate of the
valuation.'

At the same time he placed a small case, about nine inches square, in
the hands of Gerard Douw, who was as much amazed at its weight as at the
strange abruptness with which it was handed to him.

In accordance with the wishes of the stranger, he delivered it into the
hands of Schalken, and repeating HIS directions, despatched him upon the
mission.

Schalken disposed his precious charge securely beneath the folds of his
cloak, and rapidly traversing two or three narrow streets, he stopped at
a corner house, the lower part of which was then occupied by the shop of
a Jewish goldsmith.

Schalken entered the shop, and calling the little Hebrew into the
obscurity of its back recesses, he proceeded to lay before him
Vanderhausen's packet.

On being examined by the light of a lamp, it appeared entirely cased
with lead, the outer surface of which was much scraped and soiled, and
nearly white with age. This was with difficulty partially removed, and
disclosed beneath a box of some dark and singularly hard wood; this,
too, was forced, and after the removal of two or three folds of linen,
its contents proved to be a mass of golden ingots, close packed, and, as
the Jew declared, of the most perfect quality.

Every ingot underwent the scrutiny of the little Jew, who seemed to
feel an epicurean delight in touching and testing these morsels of the
glorious metal; and each one of them was replaced in the box with the
exclamation:

'Mein Gott, how very perfect! not one grain of alloy--beautiful,
beautiful!'

The task was at length finished, and the Jew certified under his hand
the value of the ingots submitted to his examination to amount to many
thousand rix-dollars.

W