Ben laughed.
"Oh, you mean the smell."
"Yesh. Dat ish it," said Jacob eagerly—"it wash de shmell. I draw mine face for dat!"
"Ha! ha!" roared Ben, "that's a good one. A Dutch boy smell a cheese. You can never make me believe that!"
"Vell, it ish no matter," replied Jacob, trudging on beside Ben in perfect good humor—"vait till you hit mit cheese—dat ish all."
Soon he added pathetically—"Penchamin, I no likes be call Tutch—dat ish no goot. I bees a Hollander."
Just as Ben was apologizing, Lambert hailed him.
"Hold up! Ben. Here is the Fish Market. There is not much to be seen at this season. But we can take a look at the storks if you wish."
Ben knew that storks were held in peculiar reverence in Holland, and that the bird figured upon the arms of the Capital. He had noticed cart-wheels placed upon the roofs of Dutch cottages to entice storks to settle upon them; he had seen their huge nests, too, on many a thatched gable roof from Broek to the Hague. But it was winter now. The nests were empty. No greedy birdlings opened their mouths—or rather their heads—at the approach of a great white winged thing, with outstretched neck and legs, bearing a dangling something for their breakfast. The long-bills were far away, picking up food on African shores; and before they would return in the Spring, Ben's visit to the land of dykes would be over.
Therefore he pressed eagerly forward, as Van Mounen led the way through the fish market, anxious to see if storks in Holland were anything like the melancholy specimens he had seen in the Zoölogical Gardens of London.