creatures that it had. The saint had left no ticket for them to attend
a lecture on Jakob Cats. It was not an appointed part of the ceremonies.
Therefore when the youngsters saw that the mother looked neither
frightened nor offended, they gathered new courage. The grand chorus
rose triumphant, and frolic and joy reigned supreme.

Good Saint Nicholas! For the sake of the young Hollanders, I, for
one, am willing to acknowledge him and defend his reality against all
unbelievers.

Carl Schummel was quite busy during that day, assuring little children,
confidentially, that not Saint Nicholas but their own fathers and
mothers had produced the oracle and loaded the tables. But WE know
better than that.

And yet if this were a saint, why did he not visit the Brinker cottage
that night? Why was that one home, so dark and sorrowful, passed by?

What the Boys Saw and Did in Amsterdam

"Are we all here?" cried Peter, in high glee, as the party assembled
upon the canal early the next morning, equipped for their skating
journey. "Let me see. As Jacob has made me captain, I must call the
roll. Carl Schummel, you here?"

"Ya!"

"Jacob Poot!"

"Ya!"

"Benjamin Dobbs!"

"Ya-a!"

"Lambert van Mounen!"

"Ya!"

"That's lucky! Couldn't get on without YOU, as you're the only one who
can speak English. Ludwig van Holp!"

"Ya!"

"Voostenwalbert Schimmelpenninck!"

No answer.

"Ah, the little rogue has been kept at home! Now, boys, it's just eight
o'clock--glorious weather, and the Y is as firm as a rock. We'll be at
Amsterdam in thirty minutes. One, two, three START!"

True enough, in less than half an hour they had crossed a dike of
solid masonry and were in the very heart of the great metropolis of the
Netherlands--a walled city of ninety-five islands and nearly two hundred
bridges. Although Ben had been there twice since his arrival in Holland,
he saw much to excite wonder, but his Dutch comrades, having lived
nearby all their lives, considered it the most matter-of-course place in
the world. Everything interested Ben: the tall houses with their forked
chimneys and gable ends facing the street; the merchants' ware rooms,
perched high up under the roofs of their dwellings, with long, armlike
cranes hoisting and lowering goods past the household windows; the grand
public buildings erected upon wooden piles driven deep into the marshy
ground; the narrow streets; the canals crossing the city everywhere; the