intention being to pull up at the door below. He had seen

"Amen to that!" said Lambert heartily while Ludwig van Holp looked at his brother in such a bright, proud way that Jacob Poot, who was an only son, wished from his heart that the little form buried in the old church at home had lived to grow up beside him.

"Humph!" said Carl. "It's all very well to be saintly and forgiving, and all that sort of thing, but I'm naturally hard. All these fine ideas seem to rattle off me like hailstones--and it's nobody's business, either, if they do."

Peter recognized a touch of good feeling in this clumsy concession. Holding out his hand, he said in a frank, hearty tone, "Come, lad, shake hands, and let us be good friends, even if we don't exactly agree on all questions."

"We do agree better than you think," sulked Carl as he returned Peter's grasp.

"All right," responded Peter briskly. "Now, Van Mounen, we await Benjamin's wishes. Where would he like to go?"

"To the Egyptian Museum?" answered Lambert after holding a brief consultation with Ben.

"That is on the Breedstraat. To the museum let it be. Come, boys!"

"This open square before us," said Lambert, as he and Ben walked on together, "is pretty in summer, with its shady trees. They call it the Ruine. Years ago it was covered with houses, and the Rapenburg Canal, here, ran through the street. Well, one day a barge loaded with forty thousand pounds of gunpowder, bound for Delft, was lying alongside, and the bargemen took a notion to cook their dinner on the deck, and before anyone knew it, sir, the whole thing blew up, killing lots of persons and scattering about three hundred houses to the winds."