home, or to the Reverend Pastor
Slagkop at school (he was a red-headed man who always hit you with his
left hand, and he had but one eye, which glared viciously upon you while
he beat you). But now that I am old, it is clear that I have a right to
give good advice to the young: even to the warning them not to be guilty
of the transgressions of which I may have been guilty ever so many years
ago; because I have seen so much of the world, and have passed through
so many dangers and trials, and have _not_ been hanged. And this has
always been my motto. When you are young, practise just as much or as
little as you are able; but never forget to preach, whenever you can get
anybody to listen to you. To yourself, you may do no good; but you may
be, often, of considerable service to other people. A guide-post on the
dyke of a canal is of some use, although it never goes to the place the
way to which it points out.

That which is now the Kingdom of the Netherlands (Heaven preserve the
King thereof, and the Crown Prince, and all their wives and families,
and may they live long and prosper: such is the hope of Jan Daal, who
drinks all their good healths in a tumbler of Schiedam) was in old times
known (as you ought to be well aware, little boys) as the Republic, of
the United Provinces; and there was no King--only a kind of ornamental
figurehead, not very richly gilt, who was a Prince of the House of
Orange, and was called the Stadtholder: the real governors and
administrators of the Confederation being certain grand gentlemen called
Their High Mightinesses. And very high and mighty airs did they give
themselves; and very long robes, and very large periwigs, as flowing as
a ship's mainsail, did they wear, so I have heard my old father say many
a time, ever so many years ago. Mynheer Van Bloomersdaal, in his
"Pictures of the Glories of Holland"--how I hated that book when I had
to learn a page of it, every day, by heart, and how I love it, now that
nobody can compel me to remember even a line of it; but I do so for my
own pleasure,--Mynheer Van Bloomersdaal, I say, has told us that the
United Provinces are seven in number, and consist of Holland Proper,
with Gueldres, Zealand, Friesland, Utrecht, Groningen, and Over-Yssel.
By the deep, seven. Always be sure that you are right in your
soundings; and take care to put fresh tallow in your lead, to make sure
what bottom you are steering to.

I think that I must have been born