The ancient mansion of his forefathers was still kept up, but instead
of being a little yellow-fronted Dutch house in a garden, it now stood
boldly in the midst of a street, the grand house of the neighborhood;
for Wolfert enlarged it with a wing on each side, and a cupola or tea
room on top, where he might climb up and smoke his pipe in hot weather;
and in the course of time the whole mansion was overrun by the
chubby-faced progeny of Amy Webber and Dirk Waldron.
As Wolfert waxed old and rich and corpulent, he also set up a great
gingerbread-colored carriage drawn by a pair of black Flanders mares
with tails that swept the ground; and to commemorate the origin of his
greatness he had for a crest a fullblown cabbage painted on the
pannels, with the pithy motto _Alles Kopf_ that is to say, ALL HEAD;
meaning thereby that he had risen by sheer head-work.
To fill the measure of his greatness, in the fullness of time the
renowned Ramm Rapelye slept with his fathers, and Wolfert Webber
succeeded to the leathern-bottomed arm-chair in the inn parlor at
Corlears Hook; where he long reigned greatly honored and respected,
insomuch that he was never known to tell a story without its being
believed, nor to utter a joke without its being laughed at.
End of Project Gutenberg's Tales of a Traveller, by Washington Irving
*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TALES OF A TRAVELLER ***
***** This file should be named 13514.
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