ON GETTING THERE 11 



liquors of a most excellent order, and den Heer 

 finishes important letters. After that, walk forth 

 to the flowers. 



The gardens are sometimes rather far from the 

 house, and often not very near each other, one 

 man owning or renting several at considerable 

 distances apart. Some of the younger men use 

 bicycles to get from one to the other, some of the 

 elder tricycles, which seems a doubtful expedient, 

 seeing the nature of the roads. One old man who 

 used the latter method, and wished to try the 

 former, wept tears of sheer rage when his wife 

 and family interfered, for the sake of his safety, 

 to prevent him from learning to ride the swifter 

 machine. And, being Dutch not French, he was 

 not content with weeping, but proceeded to 

 frustrate their well-meant interference. Of an 

 evening, when by his own account he was late 

 working in the office, he took his son's bicycle to 

 a bulb barn, and, by the light of a lantern, rode 

 it up and down the centre aisle. He damaged 

 himself a good deal from time to time, and the 

 bicycle somewhat; but he was not discovered. 

 He explained his own injuries in various ingenious, 

 if not strictly truthful, ways ; and of the bicycle's 

 he was never suspected, although he showed 



