Chapter 67
The Old HouseA VERY old house stood once in a street with several that
were quite new and clean. The date of its erection had been carved
on one of the beams, and surrounded by scrolls formed of tulips and
hop-tendrils; by this date it could be seen that the old house was
nearly three hundred years old. Verses too were written over the
windows in old-fashioned letters, and grotesque faces, curiously
carved, grinned at you from under the cornices. One story projected
a long way over the other, and under the roof ran a leaden gutter,
with a dragon's head at the end. The rain was intended to pour out
at the dragon's mouth, but it ran out of his body instead, for
there was a hole in the gutter. The other houses in the street were
new and well built, with large window pan
