(Setting: The showroom of the Manhattan Museum of Quaint Dutch Curios, a small, crooked building with faded gray plank siding, located in the heart of New York City’s Bowery. Date: 5 August 1774. Situation: The New York Knickerbocker News’s junior reporter Absalom van Wyck, only son of the newspaper’s owner, is on probationary assignment after his inadvertent consumption of the blue-ribbon turnip while reporting at a local farmers’ market fair. Inside the museum, van Wyck has just met curator Maartin van der Goot, a small, crooked man with faded gray side whiskers.)
Curator: (proudly) You see here our most prized exhibit, Peter Stuyvesant’s peg leg, made of genuine wood.
Van Wyck: Peter Stuyvesant’s very own, authentic peg leg? Pshaw! I’m not buying it.
Curator: Well, I’m not selling it.
Van Wyck: (peers at it more closely, then taps along its length) Hmm. You might want to reconsider. If this is indeed the governor’s peg leg, I’m sure it would fetch an agreeable sum.
Curator: My good man, this is a museum, not a souvenir shop. Just look at the next exhibit. Here are twelve thousand beaver pelts collected by Henrick Hudson for shipment back to Europe, but rejected by all Dutch traders because the fur had been tainted by beaver fever, rendering the pelts practically hairless.
Van Wyck: Impressive. How much for the peg leg?
Curator: Did you know that beaver pelt fur can be felted to make waterproof hats?
Van Wyck: Really, just name your price for the peg leg. My dad’s birthday is coming up, and he said he wanted something that was one of a kind. Unless Stuyvesant had two peg legs, or several spares.
Curator: Another interesting fact about the beaver pelt trade is that castoreum, the secretion of beavers’ anal glands, was used for medicines and perfumes.
Van Wyck: (clutching the leg) I’ll give you fifty pounds for it!
Curator: Mr. van Wyck, I tell you the item is not for sale.
Van Wyck: (tosses the leg back onto its stand) Just so, it’s probably infested with termites, anyway.
Curator: Are you implying that our museum houses termites, Mr. van Wyck?
Van Wyck: No, I’m stating it flat out.
Curator: I would escort you to the door, young man, if I didn’t have such an interesting piece to show you in this next exhibit. Here is Peter Minuit’s original leather purse, the one that held those sixty Dutch guilders used to purchase Manhattan Island from the Reckgawawang Indians in 1626. It is in fragile condition. Notice the finely etched motif of Kama Sutra illustrations, very unusual for European purses of that time period.
Van Wyck: And what happened to the sixty Dutch guilders? The exhibit seems incomplete without them.
Curator: I have just told you that Minuit gave them to the Indians in exchange for the island of Manhattan.
Van Wyck: Shrewd. Tell me, what are these finely etched illustrations on Peter Minuit’s purse? They look to me like a series of deviant sexual positions, but surely a motif like that would be unusual for European purses of that time period.
Curator: Indeed it would be. Please don’t touch the purse, Mr. van Wyck.
Van Wyck: Why? Is it infested with beaver fever mites?
Curator: Mighty Methuselah’s scrotal cyst! Have I not explained to your satisfaction that the Manhattan Museum of Quaint Dutch Curios is free from infestations of any kind? Unless, of course, you have brought one in upon your person.
Van Wyck: Are you implying that I might carry some form of infestation about my person, Mr. Van Der Goot?
Curator: Actually, no, I believe I shall state it outright. I should demand your prompt exit from this museum, but I promised your father I’d show you New Netherland lawyer Adriaen van der Donck’s autographed spittoon. Notice also the piquant epithet condemning the Dutch West India Company etched along the base.
Van Wyck: That could be anybody’s spittoon. I’m not buying it.
Curator: Well, I’m not selling it.
Van Wyck: Upon further thought, Dad could use a new spittoon. His old one was spirited away by a family of raccoons that are systematically pilfering the house of all useful possessions.
Curator: How much for the raccoon pelts?
Van Wyck: How much for the spittoon?
Curator: I shall call in our appraiser, Cornelius van Leeuwenhoek, to set a price for the pelts. He will tell you how much the spittoon is worth. Perhaps we may orchestrate a trade.
Van Wyck: Excellent!
Curator: Meanwhile, I would show you the very drawers that Willem Kieft was wearing upon hearing the outcome of the Pavonia Massacre of 1643, but I’m wearing them today.
Van Wyck: I’ll give you twenty-five pounds for them.
Curator: I must tell you, in full disclosure, they are threadbare and stained in several places.
Van Wyck: Even better!
Curator: I’ll give them to you in exchange for your hat. That is a clever polka dot cockade pinned upon its side.
Van Wyck: Well, Mr. van der Goot, in that same spirit of full disclosure, I must tell you this hat contains a nest of moths just above the brim, and, furthermore, it isn’t even my hat.
Curator: Jolly good! Do we have a deal?
Van Wyck: I think we have! Is there a nearby closet wherein gentlemen may swap out their garments?
Curator: Follow me. It has definitely been a pleasure to make your acquaintance!
Van Wyck: And I, yours. Tell you what, toss that peg leg into the bargain and I’ll stand you to dinner at Delancey’s Chop House. One word of caution: the chops are usually rancid, but the ale is first-rate!
Curator: Even better!
(Exit Messrs. van Wyck and van der Goot, arm in arm, to the gentlemen’s closet and thereafter to a pleasant dinner on the town, rancid meat notwithstanding.)
Curator: (proudly) You see here our most prized exhibit, Peter Stuyvesant’s peg leg, made of genuine wood.
Van Wyck: Peter Stuyvesant’s very own, authentic peg leg? Pshaw! I’m not buying it.
Curator: Well, I’m not selling it.
Van Wyck: (peers at it more closely, then taps along its length) Hmm. You might want to reconsider. If this is indeed the governor’s peg leg, I’m sure it would fetch an agreeable sum.
Curator: My good man, this is a museum, not a souvenir shop. Just look at the next exhibit. Here are twelve thousand beaver pelts collected by Henrick Hudson for shipment back to Europe, but rejected by all Dutch traders because the fur had been tainted by beaver fever, rendering the pelts practically hairless.
Van Wyck: Impressive. How much for the peg leg?
Curator: Did you know that beaver pelt fur can be felted to make waterproof hats?
Van Wyck: Really, just name your price for the peg leg. My dad’s birthday is coming up, and he said he wanted something that was one of a kind. Unless Stuyvesant had two peg legs, or several spares.
Curator: Another interesting fact about the beaver pelt trade is that castoreum, the secretion of beavers’ anal glands, was used for medicines and perfumes.
Van Wyck: (clutching the leg) I’ll give you fifty pounds for it!
Curator: Mr. van Wyck, I tell you the item is not for sale.
Van Wyck: (tosses the leg back onto its stand) Just so, it’s probably infested with termites, anyway.
Curator: Are you implying that our museum houses termites, Mr. van Wyck?
Van Wyck: No, I’m stating it flat out.
Curator: I would escort you to the door, young man, if I didn’t have such an interesting piece to show you in this next exhibit. Here is Peter Minuit’s original leather purse, the one that held those sixty Dutch guilders used to purchase Manhattan Island from the Reckgawawang Indians in 1626. It is in fragile condition. Notice the finely etched motif of Kama Sutra illustrations, very unusual for European purses of that time period.
Van Wyck: And what happened to the sixty Dutch guilders? The exhibit seems incomplete without them.
Curator: I have just told you that Minuit gave them to the Indians in exchange for the island of Manhattan.
Van Wyck: Shrewd. Tell me, what are these finely etched illustrations on Peter Minuit’s purse? They look to me like a series of deviant sexual positions, but surely a motif like that would be unusual for European purses of that time period.
Curator: Indeed it would be. Please don’t touch the purse, Mr. van Wyck.
Van Wyck: Why? Is it infested with beaver fever mites?
Curator: Mighty Methuselah’s scrotal cyst! Have I not explained to your satisfaction that the Manhattan Museum of Quaint Dutch Curios is free from infestations of any kind? Unless, of course, you have brought one in upon your person.
Van Wyck: Are you implying that I might carry some form of infestation about my person, Mr. Van Der Goot?
Curator: Actually, no, I believe I shall state it outright. I should demand your prompt exit from this museum, but I promised your father I’d show you New Netherland lawyer Adriaen van der Donck’s autographed spittoon. Notice also the piquant epithet condemning the Dutch West India Company etched along the base.
Van Wyck: That could be anybody’s spittoon. I’m not buying it.
Curator: Well, I’m not selling it.
Van Wyck: Upon further thought, Dad could use a new spittoon. His old one was spirited away by a family of raccoons that are systematically pilfering the house of all useful possessions.
Curator: How much for the raccoon pelts?
Van Wyck: How much for the spittoon?
Curator: I shall call in our appraiser, Cornelius van Leeuwenhoek, to set a price for the pelts. He will tell you how much the spittoon is worth. Perhaps we may orchestrate a trade.
Van Wyck: Excellent!
Curator: Meanwhile, I would show you the very drawers that Willem Kieft was wearing upon hearing the outcome of the Pavonia Massacre of 1643, but I’m wearing them today.
Van Wyck: I’ll give you twenty-five pounds for them.
Curator: I must tell you, in full disclosure, they are threadbare and stained in several places.
Van Wyck: Even better!
Curator: I’ll give them to you in exchange for your hat. That is a clever polka dot cockade pinned upon its side.
Van Wyck: Well, Mr. van der Goot, in that same spirit of full disclosure, I must tell you this hat contains a nest of moths just above the brim, and, furthermore, it isn’t even my hat.
Curator: Jolly good! Do we have a deal?
Van Wyck: I think we have! Is there a nearby closet wherein gentlemen may swap out their garments?
Curator: Follow me. It has definitely been a pleasure to make your acquaintance!
Van Wyck: And I, yours. Tell you what, toss that peg leg into the bargain and I’ll stand you to dinner at Delancey’s Chop House. One word of caution: the chops are usually rancid, but the ale is first-rate!
Curator: Even better!
(Exit Messrs. van Wyck and van der Goot, arm in arm, to the gentlemen’s closet and thereafter to a pleasant dinner on the town, rancid meat notwithstanding.)