d. "Wait till
he comes from school."

Walter asked him. Stoffel--there are more such people in the
world--would never admit that he did not know a thing; and he always
knew how to appear knowing.

"What the dolls mean? Well, you see--those are, so to say, the pictures
of various persons. There, for instance, the one with a crown on his
head--that is a king."

"I told you Stoffel could explain them," corroborated his mother.

"Yes, but I should have liked to know what king, and what he did."

"Well! There it is at the bottom. You can read it, can't you?"

"Macbeth?"

"Certainly. It's Macbeth, a famous king of ancient times."

"And that one there with a sword in his hand?"

"Also a king, or a general, or a hero, or something of the
kind--somebody that wants to fight. Perhaps David, or Saul, or
Alexander the Great. That's not to be taken so exactly."

"And the lady with the flowers? She seems to be tearing them up."

"That one? Show her to me: Ophelia. Yes, that's Ophelia. Don't
you know?"

"Yes. Why does she throw the leaves on the ground?"

"Why? why? The questions you do ask!"

Here the mother came to the rescue of her eldest son.

"Yes, Walter, you mustn't ask more questions than anybody can answer."

Walter did not ask any more questions, but he determined to get to
the bottom of the matter at the first opportunity. His imagination
roamed over immeasurable domains--such an insatiate conqueror was
the little emperor Walter in his night-jacket!

He associated the heroes of his pictures with the doctor, who had been
so friendly to him, and with his immortal Glorioso. The Peruvian story,
too, furnished a few subjects for his empire. He married Telasco to
Juliet; and the priests of the sun got their rights again. Master
Pennewip received a new wig, but of gold-colored threads, on the
model of the straw crown of a certain King Lear. Persons that he
could see from the window were numbered among his subjects. He had
to do something; and this foreign material was preferable to that in
his immediate surroundings. Even Lady Macbeth, who was washing her
hands and not looking particularly pleasing, seemed to him to be of
a higher order than his mother or Juffrouw Laps.

In fact, for him those pictures were the greatest things in
the world. He was carried away with the crowns, diadems, plumes,
iron gratings over the faces, with the swords and the daggers with
cross-hilts to swear on--with the trains and puff-