Well, gentlemen, my grandfather was shown to his quarters, up a huge
Staircase composed of loads of hewn timber; and through long rigmarole
passages, hung with blackened paintings of fruit, and fish, and game,
and country frollics, and huge kitchens, and portly burgomasters, such
as you see about old-fashioned Flemish inns, till at length he arrived
at his room.
An old-times chamber it was, sure enough, and crowded with all kinds of
trumpery. It looked like an infirmary for decayed and superannuated
furniture; where everything diseased and disabled was sent to nurse, or
to be forgotten. Or rather, it might have been taken for a general
congress of old legitimate moveables, where every kind and country had
a representative. No two chairs were alike: such high backs and low
backs, and leather bottoms and worsted bottoms, and straw bottoms, and
no bottoms; and cracked marble tables with curiously carved legs,
holding balls in their claws, as though they were going to play at
ninepins.
My grandfather made a bow to the motley assemblage as he entered, and
having undressed himself, placed his light in the fire-place, asking
pardon of the tongs, which seemed to be making love to the shovel in
the chimney corner, and whispering soft nonsense in its ear.
The rest of the guests were by this time sound asleep; for your
Mynheers are huge sleepers. The house maids, one by one, crept up
yawning to their attics, and not a female head in the inn was laid on a
pillow that night without dreaming of the Bold Dragoon.
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