"But how does mynheer find his way?" inquired the first speaker.
"That is not very difficult. With a map in his pocket, and a tongue in his head, a man may go all over the world."
"Ja, that is good; but it is not easy sometimes to know which turning to take. What does mynheer do then?"
"I generally get to know the direction of the place I want to go to before starting, and then steer my way by the sun or wind; and seldom fail to arrive, as you may see by my being here."
This explanation sufficed them for a time as a topic for further discussion, and left me free to attend to my personal wants, which were in the imperative mood. Before long, however, one of them began again by asking, "What has mynheer to sell?"
"Nothing: my knapsack contains only articles for my own use." Here a brief confabulation followed, and I began to fancy the Dutchmen not less expert in gathering information than the New Englanders, when the question came.
"Mynheer travels, then, for his own pleasure?"
"Why not?"
"Ah, mynheer says why not; but when one travels for pleasure, he must have so much money in hand;" and, as he said this, the speaker tapped significantly the palm of one of his hands with the fingers of the other.
Whether it was that they voted such journeyings an unwholesome extravagance, or that their ideas were all exhausted, the group said no more; and shortly afterward kicking off their stained and clumsy sabots, they retired, without any further process of undressing, to their sleeping-lairs. Some crept into a loft, others into beds contrived, as berths in a ship, in recesses in the walls of the kitchen, two into each; and before I had finished my tea, a concert of snores was