to the 'Lame Cow,'" he replied
airily; "my friend up there is getting damnably heavy."

She drew back, visibly surprised and hurt.

"I do not detain ye," she said curtly, and without another word she
turned to her lanthorn-bearers and ordered them to precede her; she also
called to her duenna to follow; but she did not bestow another look on
the three men, nor did she acknowledge the respectful farewell which
came from the lips of the beast of burden.

The next moment she had already crossed the road toward the cathedral,
and she and her escort were swallowed up by the fog.

"Well, of all the d----d idiots that ever...." swore Pythagoras, in his
shrillest tones.

Even Socrates pulled himself together in order to declare emphatically
that Diogenes was a confounded fool.

"I pray thee raise thy hand to my lips," mimicked Pythagoras mockingly.
"Verrek jezelf!" he muttered under his breath.

"If you do not hold your tongue, O wise Pythagoras," retorted Diogenes
with all his wonted merriment, "I'll even have to drop Socrates on the
top of you in order to break your head."

"But 'tis a fortune--the promise of a fortune which you let slip so
stupidly."

"There is a certain wisdom even in stupidity sometimes, Pythagoras, as
you will discover one day, when your nose is less red and your figure
less fat. Remember that I have three guilders in my pocket, and that our
thirst hath not grown less. Follow me now, we've talked enough for
to-night."

And he started walking down the street with long and rapid strides.
Socrates up aloft swaying about like a dummy figure in carnival time,
and Pythagoras--still muttering a series of diversified oaths--bringing
up the rear.

CHAPTER IV

WATCH-NIGHT

And am I not proved fully justified in my statement that but for many
seemingly paltry circumstances, the further events which I am about to
place on record, and which have been of paramount importance to the
history of no less than two great and worthy families, never would have
shaped themselves as they did.

For who could assert that but for the presence of three philosophers on
the Grootemarkt on the eve of the New Year, and their subsequent
interference in the fray outside the Papist convent door in the Dam
Straat, who could assert, I say, that but for these minor circumstances
Jongejuffrouw Beresteyn would ever have condescended to exchange half a
dozen words with three out-at-elbows, homeless, shiftless, foreign