Rollo was always ready for any plan which involved the going away from
the place where he, was, to some new place which he had not seen before.

"But how are we going to find the way there?" said Rollo.

"I shall take a commissioner," said Mr. George. "I am going to Saandam,
too, where Peter the Great learned ship carpentry."

"I have heard something about that," said Rollo, "but I don't know much
about it."

"Why, Peter the Great was emperor of Russia," said Mr. George, "and he
wished to introduce ship building into his dominions. So he came to
Holland to learn about the construction of ships, in order that he might
be better qualified to take the direction of the building of a fleet in
Russia. Saandam was the place that he came to. While he was there he
lived in a small, wooden house, near the place where the ship building
was going on. That house is there now, and almost every body that comes
to this part of the country goes to see it."

"How long ago was it that he was there?" asked Rollo.

"It was more than one hundred and fifty years ago," said Mr. George.

"I should not think a wooden house would have lasted so long," said
Rollo.

"It would not have lasted so long," replied Mr. George, "if they had not
taken special pains to preserve it. They have built a brick house around
it and over it, to protect it from the weather, and so it has been
preserved. Now I think we had better go to-morrow and see Broek, and
also Saandam, and I am going to take a commissioner."

Mr. George had employed a commissioner once before, as the reader will
perhaps recollect, namely, at the Hague; and perhaps I ought to stop
here a moment to explain more fully what a commissioner is. He is a
servant hired by the day to conduct strangers about the town where they
reside, and about the environs, if necessary, to show them what there is
that is curious and wonderful there. These men are called, sometimes
commissioners and sometimes _valets de place_, and in their way they are
very useful.

If a traveller arrives at a hotel in the morning, at any important town
in Europe, before he has been in his room fifteen minutes he generally
hears a knock at his door, and on bidding the person come in, a
well-dressed looking servant man appears and asks,--

"Shall you wish for a commissioner, sir, to-day?"

Or if the gentleman, after remaining in his room a few minutes, takes
his wife or his daughter, or whomever he may have travelling wit