expose upon the pavement articles such as bedsteads, stoves, and other
heavy ware which may not be snatched up by the fleet of foot. Within
the shops are crowded clothes and books and a thousand miscellaneous
effects of small value. A hush seems to hang over this street. Even the
children, white-faced and melancholy, with deep expressionless eyes and
drooping noses, seem to have realized too soon the gravity of life, and
rarely indulge in games.

He whom the butter-merchant described as Professor von Holzen passed
quickly along the middle of the street, with an air suggesting a desire
to attract as little attention as possible. He was a heavy-shouldered
man with a bad mouth--a greedy mouth, one would think--and mild eyes.
The month was September, and the professor wore a thin black overcoat
closely buttoned across his broad chest. He carried a pair of
slate-coloured gloves and an umbrella. His whole appearance bespoke
learning and middle-class respectability. It is, after all, no use
being learned without looking learned, and Professor von Holzen took
care to dress according to his station in life. His attitude towards
the world seemed to say, "Leave me alone and I will not trouble you,"
which is, after all, as satisfactory an attitude as may be desired. It
is, at all events, better than the common attitude of the many, that
says, "Let us exchange confidences," leading to the barter of two
valueless commodities.

The professor stopped at the door of No. 15, St. Jacob Straat--one of
the oldest houses in this old street--and slowly lighted a cigar. There
is a shop on the ground-floor of No. 15, where ancient pieces of
stove-pipe and a few fire-irons are exposed for sale. Von Holzen,
having pushed open the door, stood waiting at the foot of a narrow and
grimy staircase. He knew that in such a shop in such a quarter of the