he so enraged an Irish gentleman that the latter drew his pistol and fired at him. The ball, however, only knocked the pipe from his mouth; but Van Moeulen's features were as immovable as any Dutchman's head could be, and in the calmest, most indifferent tone, he said, "Jan, e nüe piep!" "John, a fresh pipe!" But his smile was intolerable to me, for then he showed a row of very small white teeth, which looked like a fish spine. Nor did I like it that he wore great gold ear-rings.[1] He had the strange habit of rearranging every day the furniture in his rooms, and when a visitor came he was generally found putting his bureau where the bed had been, or making the study table change places with the sofa.
Little Samson was in this respect his most painfully earnest antithesis. He could not endure that any one should disturb the least thing in his room; he even became restless and disturbed if one so much as picked up the snuffers. Everything must lay just as it was, for his goods and chattels served him as aids by means of which, according to the principles of mnemonics, he fixed all kinds of historical dates or philosophic principles in his memory. Once when the housemaid
- ↑ A generation ago many men wore gold ear-rings, especially in Holland, under the belief that they were good for weak eyes, or that they in some way benefited the sight. Sailors were the last to follow this custom.
