und very funny, but
they always thought it jolly when Addie looked in. But, to please his
mother, who disapproved of this tendency to spend his time with his
elders, he would go and walk or bicycle with the three Van Saetzemas,
while despising them in his heart for unmannerly young louts, stupid as
well as ill-bred and, in addition, having their mouths ever full of
coarse talk and suggestive jokes. They were not fond of Addie, but they
looked up to him a little, just because they knew that the older
cousins, the Van Naghels, the undergraduates, thought Addie a nice boy,
though he was as young as the Van Saetzemas, while looking upon the Van
Saetzemas themselves as mere brats not worth noticing. But, for this
very reason, they did not see how Addie could care to go to Uncle
Gerrit's and play with all those babies there. They thought him a queer
boy, they did not really like him; but his intimacy with Frans and Henri
van Naghel gave Addie a sort of manly, grown-up air which they secretly
envied. And so, in order, in their turn, to appear manly and grown-up
before Addie, they could never, walking or bicycling, pass a woman
without exchanging a coarse word or phrase or disapproval, like young
men-about-town who know all about everything.

Then Addie chuckled inside himself, for he could never laugh outright,
even though he wanted to:

"You fellows sometimes call me an old fogey," he said, "but, whenever
you pass a woman, you talk like old fogeys of things you know nothing
about."

"Oh, do you know more than we do?"

"I don't say that, but I haven't my mouth always full of it."

Then they were angry, because their assumption of rakishness made no
impression, and they did not understand how Addie could flatly admit his
innocence and ignorance. They, on the contrary, were ashamed of their
innocence and ignorance, were burning to lose both as quickly as
possible, had not the courage to do so yet, though they sometimes did go
down the Spuistraat of an evening. And Addie thought to himself:

"Mamma ought just to hear them, or to see them lounging along the
streets; then she wouldn't ask me every Sunday if I have been out with
Jaap and Piet and Chris!"

And, though they did not like Addie, they were flattered when he came
and asked:

"Are you fellows coming for a ride this afternoon?"

They did not like him and they gave him all sorts of nicknames among
themselves: Old Fogey, the Baron, the Italian....

Then Marietje