n it is too thin. He has no Eau de Lob or
oil from Macassar--but I admit that I have never found at Macassar
any berries which yielded the required oil.

To begin, in the Hartenstraat was a book-shop and circulating
library. A small boy with a city complexion stood on the step and
seemed to be unable to open the door. It was evident that he was
trying to do something that was beyond his strength.

He stretched out his hand towards the door knob repeatedly, but
every time he interrupted this motion either by stopping to pull
unnecessarily at a big square-cut collar that rested on his shoulders
like a yoke, or by uselessly lifting his hand to screen an ingenuous
cough.

He was apparently lost in the contemplation of the pictures that
covered the panes of glass in the door, turning them into a model
chart of inconceivable animals, four-cornered trees and impossible
soldiers. He was glancing continually to one side, like a criminal
who fears that he is going to be caught in the act. It was manifest
that he had something in view which must be concealed from passers-by,
and from posterity, for that matter. His left hand was thrust under
the skirts of his little coat, clutching convulsively at something
concealed in his trousers pocket. To look at him one would have
thought that Walter contemplated a burglary, or something of the kind.

For his name was Walter.

It is a fortunate thing that it occurred to me to relate his history;
and now I consider it my duty to report that he was entirely innocent
of any burglarious or murderous intentions.

I only wish I could clear him of other sins as easily as this. The
object he was turning and twisting in his left breeches pocket was
not a house-key, nor a jimmy, nor a club, nor a tomahawk, nor any
infernal machine: It was a small piece of paper containing fourteen
stivers, which he had raised on his New Testament with Psalms at
the grocer's on the "Ouwebrug"; and the thing that held him fast on
the Hartenstraat was nothing more or less than his entrance into the
magic world of romance. He was going to read "Glorioso."

Glorioso! Reader, there are many imitations, but only one Glorioso. All
the Rinaldos and Fra Diavolos are not to be mentioned in the same
breath with Glorioso, this incomparable hero who carried away
countesses by the dozen, plundered popes and cardinals as if they
were ordinary fallible people, and made a testament-thief of Walter
Pieterse.

To be sure, Glor