ope. All the--what is that?"

"Where? What do you mean?"

"Why, that paper on the door opposite. Don't you see? Two or three
persons are reading it. I have noticed several of these papers since
I've been here."

"Oh, that's only a health bulletin. Somebody in the house is ill, and
to prevent a steady knocking at the door, the family write an account of
the patient's condition on a placard and hang it outside the door, for
the benefit of inquiring friends--a very sensible custom, I'm sure.
Nothing strange about it that I can see. Go on, please. You said, 'All
the'--and there you left me hanging."

"I was going to say," resumed Ben, "that all the--all the--how comically
persons do dress here, to be sure! Just look at those men and women with
their sugarloaf hats. And see this woman ahead of us with a straw bonnet
like a scoop shovel tapering to a point in the back. Did ever you see
anything so funny? And those tremendous wooden shoes, too--I declare,
she's a beauty?"

"Oh, they are only back-country folk," said Lambert, rather impatiently.
"You might as well let old Boerhaave drop or else shut your eyes."

"Ha! ha! Well, I was GOING to say, all the big men of his day sought out
this great professor. Even Peter the Great, when he came over to Holland
from Russia to learn shipbuilding, attended his lectures regularly. By
that time Boerhaave was professor of medicine and chemistry and botany
in the University at Leyden. He had grown to be very wealthy as a
practicing physician, but he used to say that the poor were his best
patients because God would be their paymaster. All Europe learned
to love and honor him. In short, he became so famous that a certain
mandarin of China addressed a letter to 'the illustrious Boerhaave,
physician in Europe,' and the letter found its way to him without any
difficulty."

"My goodness! That is what I call being a public character. The boys
have stopped. How now, Captain van Holp, where next?"

"We propose to move on," said Van Holp. "There is nothing to see at this
season in the Bosch. The Bosch is a noble wood, Benjamin, a grand
park where they have most magnificent trees, protected by law. Do you
understand?"

"Ya!" nodded Ben as the captain proceeded.

"Unless you all desire to visit the Museum of Natural History, we may
go on the grand canal again. If we had more time it would be pleasant to
take Benjamin up the Blue Stairs."

"What are the Blue Stairs, Lambert?" asked Ben.