Cornelius de Witte, after having attended to his family affairs, reached the house of his godson, Cornelius van Baerle, one evening in the month of January, 1672.

De Witte, although being very little of a horticulturist or of an artist, went over the whole mansion, from the studio to the greenhouse, inspecting everything, from the pictures down to the tulips. He thanked his godson for having joined him on the deck of the admiral’s ship “The Seven Provinces,” during the battle of Southwold Bay, and for having given his name to a magnificent tulip; and whilst he thus, with the kindness and affability of a father to a son, visited Van Baerle’s treasures, the crowd gathered with curiosity, and even respect, before the door of the happy man.

All this hubbub excited the attention of Boxtel, who was just taking his meal by his fireside. He inquired what it meant, and, on being informed of the cause of all this stir, climbed up to his post of observation, where in spite of the cold, he took his stand, with the telescope to his eye.

This telescope had not been of great service to him since the autumn of 1671. The tulips, like true daughters of the East, averse to cold, do not abide in the open ground in winter. They need the shelter of the house, the soft bed on the shelves, and the congenial warmth of the stove. Van Baerle, therefore, passed the whole winter in his laboratory, in the midst of his books and pictures. He went only rarely to the room where he kept his bulbs, unless it were to allow some occasional rays of the sun to enter, by opening one of the movable sashes of the glass front.

On the evening of which we are speaking, after the two Corneliuses had visited together all the apartments of the house, whilst a train of domestics followed their steps, De Witte said, in a low voice to Van Baerle,—

“My dear son, send these people away, and let us be alone for some minutes.”

The younger Cornelius bowing assent, said aloud,—

“Would you now, sir, please to see my dry room?”

The dry-room, this pantheon, this sanctum sanctorum of the tulip fancier, was, as Delphi of old, interdicted to the profane uninitiated.

Never had any of his servants been bold enough to set his foot there. Cornelius admitted only the inoffensive broom of an old Frisian housekeeper, who had been his nurse, and who, from the time when he had devoted himself to the culture of tulips, ventured no longer to put onions in his stews, for fear of pulling to pieces and mincing the idol of her foster child.

At the mere mention of the dry-room, therefore, the servants, who were carrying the lights, respectfully fell back. Cornelius, taking the candlestick from the hands of the foremost, conducted his godfather into that room, which was no other than that very cabinet with a glass front, into which Boxtel was continually prying with his telescope.

The envious spy was watching more intently than ever.

First of all he saw the walls and windows lit up.

Then two dark figures approached.

One of them tall, majestic, stern, sat down near the table on which Van Baerle had placed the taper.

In this figure, Boxtel recognised the pale features of Cornelius De Witte, whose long hair, parted in front, fell over his shoulders.

De Witte, after having said some few words to Cornelius, the meaning of which the prying neighbour could not read in the movement of his lips, took from his breast pocket a white parcel, carefully sealed, which Boxtel, judging from the manner in which Cornelius received it, and placed it in one of the presses, supposed to contain papers of the greatest importance.

His first thought was that this precious deposit inclosed some newly-imported bulbs from Bengal or Ceylon; but he soon reflected that Cornelius De Witte was very little addicted to tulip growing, and that he only occupied himself with the affairs of man, a pursuit by far less peaceful and agreeable than that of the florist He, therefore, came to the conclusion that the parcel contained simply some papers, and that these papers were relating to politics.