Nature has endowed him with a sonorous baritone voice, the notes of which, whether sharp or melodious, he is careful in expressing, because he is charmed with his art, and has an idea that it is fearfully egotistical to conceal such treasures.

One note especially he never fails to utter distinctly, and that is the last--the note of payment.
"Sometimes he allows himself to become so absorbed in his art that he forgets the presence in the hotel of tired travellers, and disturbs their slumbers by loud roulades and cadences; or perhaps he is asked to fetch a bottle of beer, he stops on the way to the cellar to perfect the harmony of a scale, and does not return till the patience of the customer is exhausted.

But who would have the heart to complain of such small grievances when the love of song is stronger than any other ?" I had no such fortune in Holland.

No hotel proprietor rhymed for me, no waiter sang.

My chief friends were rather the hotel porters, of whom I recall in particular two--the paternal colossus at the Amstel in Amsterdam, who might have sat for the Creator to an old master--urbane, efficient, a storehouse of good counsel; and the plump and wide cynic into whose capable and kindly hands one falls at the Oude Doelen at The Hague, that shrewd and humorous reader of men and Americans.