"
The man from the Flying Dutchman said, "It is impossible; we cannot
believe you. Here is another letter from myself, in which I have
sent a bank-note to my dear sister, to buy some gallant lace to
make her a high head-dress."
Tom Willis, hearing this, said, "It is most likely that her head
now lies under a tombstone, which will outlast all the changes of
the fashion. But on what house is your bank-note?"
The stranger replied, "On the house of Vanderbrucker & Company."
The man of whom Tom Willis had spoken said, "I guess there will
now be some discount upon it, for that banking house was gone
to destruction forty years ago; and Vanderbrucker was afterward
a-missing. But to remember these things is like raking up the
bottom of an old canal."
The stranger called out, passionately, "It is impossible;
we cannot believe it! It is cruel to say such things to people in
our condition. There is a letter from our captain himself, to his
much-beloved and faithful wife, whom he left at a pleasant summer
dwelling on the border of the Haarlemer Mer. She promised to have
the house beautifully painted and gilded before he came back,
and to get a new set of looking-glasses for the principal chamber,
that she might see as many images of Vanderdecken as if she had
six husbands at once.
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