ered at him and called him "Professor Walter,"
or when his sisters scolded him for his "idiotic groping among
the bed-curtains," or when his mother punished him for eating up
the rice that she intended to serve again "to-morrow"--then it was
always Leentje who restored the equilibrium of his soul and banished
his cares, just as, with her inimitable stitches, she banished the
"triangles" from his jacket and breeches.

Ugly, dirty, evil-tongued Leentje, how Walter did like you! What
consolation radiated from her thimble, what encouragement even in
the sight of her tapeline! And what a lullaby in those gentle words:
"There now, you have a needle and thread and scraps. Sew your little
sack for your pencils and tell me more of all those counts, who always
passed over from one house into another."

CHAPTER IV

I don't know what prophet Walter got as punishment for that pawned
Bible. The pastor came to preach a special sermon. The man was simply
horrified at such impiousness. Juffrouw Laps, who lived in the lower
anteroom, had heard about it too. She was very pious and asserted
that such a boy was destined for the gallows.

"One begins with the Bible," she said significantly, "and ends with
something else."

No one has ever found out just what that "something else" is which
follows a beginning with the Bible. I don't think she knew herself,
and that she said it to make people believe that she possessed much
wisdom and knew more about the world than she gave utterance to. Now,
I admit that I have no respect for wisdom that cannot express itself
in intelligible words, and, if it had been my affair, I should have
very promptly drawn a tight rein on Juffrouw Laps.

Stoffel delivered an exhortation in which he brought out all that had
been forgotten by the preacher. He spoke of Korah, Dathan and Abiram,
who had erred similarly to Walter and had been sent to an early grave
for their sins. He said too, that the honor of the family had been
lost at the "Ouwebrug," that it was his duty, "as the eldest son of an
irreproachable widow and third assistant at the intermediate school,
to take care of the honor of the house----"

"Of Bavaria," said Leentje softly.

That "a marriage, or any other arrangement for the girls, would be
frustrated by Walter's offence, for no one would have anything to do
with girls who----"

In short, Stoffel accented the fact that it was "a disgrace," and that
"he would never be able to look an