Walter Pieterse Part 2

"He is leaving school, and will certainly not return after the holidays."

"H-e-e i-i-s?"

"Yes, and for that reason, and also because there are not anything like so many to the pound as we had thought. Mint-drops are heavy. We've calculated everything, Franz and I."

"Yes," added little Franz, with the seriousness of one giving important advice in a time of great danger, "the things are very heavy at present. Feel this one; but you must give it back to me."

Walter weighed the mint-drop on his finger and returned it conscientiously.

He found it heavy. Ah, in this moment he was so depressed that he would have found everything heavy.

Franz stuck the piece of candy into his mouth, and sucking at it continued:

"Yes, really, very heavy. These are the English drops, you know. And then there is something else, too, isn't there, Gustave? The propriety, the respectability! Tell him, Gustave."

"The respectability," cried Gustave, significantly.

"We mean the respectability of it," repeated Franz, as if he were explaining something.

Walter looked first from one to the other, and did not seem to comprehend.

"You tell him, Gustave."

"Yes, Walter, Franz will tell you," said Gustave.

"Walter, our papa is a deacon, and carries a portfolio, and there where we live is a----"

"Yes," cried Gustave, "there on the Gracht, you know, lives M'neer Krulewinkel. He has a villa----"

"With a portico," added Franz.

"It's just on account of our standing--don't you see, Walter? And when a visitor comes our mother brings out the wine."

"Yes, Maderia, Maderia! And our tobacco-box is silver, and----"

"No, Franz, it isn't silver; but, Walter, it looks just like silver."

Our poor little sinner understood all of this, but he failed to see what bearing it might have on his own disappointed hopes. He stuttered: "Yes, Gustave--yes, Franz--but the peppermint----"

"We just wanted to tell you that we are very respectable, don't you see?"

"Yes, Gustave."

"And well-behaved."

"Y-e-e-s, Franz." Poor Walter!

"And then as you said you never got any pocket-money----"

"Yes, Walter--and don't you know? Because our papa is so respectable--when winter comes you can see how he looks after the orphans."

"Yes, and he rings at every door. And--and--we are afraid, that you----"

"That you----"

"The florin----"

"The florin! You understand?"

"That you didn't get it----"

"That you didn't get it honestly. That's it," said Franz, sticking another mint-drop into his mouth, perhaps to brace himself up.

It was out at last. Poor, miserable Walter.

"And on that account, Walter, we would rather not keep the money, but just divide now--equally, as we all agreed."

"Yes," cried Gustave, "divide equally. The work--we--you understand?"

They divided the profits. And the Hallemans were sleek about it. Twenty-four stivers; three into twenty-four goes eight times, therefore----

Walter received eight stivers.

"Don't you see," explained Gustave, "we couldn't do it, because our papa is a deacon."

"Yes--and our tobacco-box, even if it isn't pure silver, it's just like silver."

My lack of faith in the extreme respectability of the Hallemans is based upon the foregoing story; and I am inclined to think that all this "respectability" of which Walter heard so much at home was only an excuse on his mother's part to get him out of the way. For there was a lack of room. If she had wanted to use Walter about the house, it is questionable if she had discovered anything especially respectable about those boys.

Many laws and most customs have their origin in a "lack of room"--in the intellect, in one's character, in the house or flat, in the fields, in the city.

This applies to the preference for the right hand--a result of crowding at the table--to the inst.i.tution of marriage, and to many things lying between these extremes.

CHAPTER III

We will not try to explain further this fruitful principle of "limitation of s.p.a.ce." Walter knew the fruit of it, even if he failed to recognize the origin. He was not worried so much by the mere coming home as by the punishment he expected to receive as soon as that New Testament should be missed. He had returned from his little excursion into the country with Glorioso, and now in Amsterdam again the memory of his recent offense--or shall I say the antic.i.p.ation of what was coming?--lay heavily on his mind.

If we could think away all the results of crime committed, there would be very little left of what we call conscience.

But Walter consoled himself with the thought that it wasn't a thimble this time. The testament will not be missed at once, he reflected, because Sunday was a long way off, and no one would ask about it during the week.

No, it was not a thimble, or a knitting-needle, or a sugar-bowl, or anything in daily use.

When our hero got home, he stuck his greasy Glorioso under Leentje's sewing-table--the same Leentje who had sewed up his breeches after that wonderful leap, so that his mother never found out about it. She went down to her grave in ignorance of these torn breeches.