Walter Pieterse

Walter PieterseChapter II don’t know the year; but, since the reader will be interested to know the time when this story begins, I will give him a few facts to serve as landmarks.My mother complained that provisions were dear, and fuel as well. So it must have been before the discovery of Political Economy. Our servant-girl married the barber’s assistant, who had only one leg. “Such a saving of shoe-leather,” the good little soul argued. But from this fact one might infer that the science of Political Economy had already been discovered.At all events, it was a long time ago. Amsterdam had no sidewalks, import duties were still levied, in some civilized countries there were still gallows, and people didn’t die every day of nervousness. Yes, it was a long time ago.TheHartenstraat! I have never comprehended why this street should be called thus. Perhaps it is an error, and one ought to writeHertenstraat, or something else. I have never found more “heartiness” there than elsewhere; besides, “harts” werenot particularly plentiful, although the place could boast of a poulterer and dealer in venison.I haven’t been there for a long time, and I only remember that theStraatconnects two main canal-streets, canals that I would fill up if I had the power to make Amsterdam one of the most beautiful cities of Europe.My predilection for Amsterdam, our metropolis, does not make me blind to her faults. Among these I would mention first her complete inability to serve as the scene of things romantic. One finds here no masked Dominos on the street, the common people are everywhere open to inspection, no Ghetto, no Templebar, no Chinese quarter, no mysterious courtyard. Whoever commits murder is hanged; and the girls are called “Mietje” and “Jansje”—everything prose.It requires courage to begin a story in a place ending with “dam.” There it is difficult to have “Emeranties” and “Héloises”; but even these would be of little use, since all of these belles have already been profaned.How do the French authors manage, though, to dress up their “Margots” and “Marions” as ideals and protect their “Henris” and“Ernestes”from the trite and trivial? These last remind one ofM’sieu HenriorM’sieu Ernestejust about like our castle embankments remind one of filthy water.Goethe was a courageous man: Gretchen, Klärchen——But I, in the Hartenstraat!However, I am not writing a romance; and even ifI should write one, I don’t see why I shouldn’t publish it as a true story. For it is a true story, the story of one who in his youth was in love with a sawmill and had to endure this torture for a long time.For love is torture, even if it is only love for a sawmill.It will be seen that the story is going to be quite simple, in fact too frail to stand alone. So here and there I am going to plait something in with the thread of the narrative, just as the Chinaman does with his pigtail when it is too thin. He has noEau de Lobor oil from Macassar—but I admit that I have never found at Macassar any berries which yielded the required oil.To begin, in the Hartenstraat was a book-shop and circulating library. A small boy with a city complexion stood on the step and seemed to be unable to open the door. It was evident that he was trying to do something that was beyond his strength.He stretched out his hand towards the door knob repeatedly, but every time he interrupted this motion either by stopping to pull unnecessarily at a big square-cut collar that rested on his shoulders like a yoke, or by uselessly lifting his hand to screen an ingenuous cough.He was apparently lost in the contemplation of the pictures that covered the panes of glass in the door, turning them into a model chart of inconceivable animals, four-cornered trees and impossible soldiers. He was glancing continually to one side, like a criminal who fears that he is going to be caught in the act.It was manifest that he had something in view which must be concealed from passers-by, and from posterity, for that matter. His left hand was thrust under the skirts of his little coat, clutching convulsively at something concealed in his trousers pocket. To look at him one would have thought that Walter contemplated a burglary, or something of the kind.For his name was Walter.It is a fortunate thing that it occurred to me to relate his history; and now I consider it my duty to report that he was entirely innocent of any burglarious or murderous intentions.I only wish I could clear him of other sins as easily as this. The object he was turning and twisting in his left breeches pocket was not a house-key, nor a jimmy, nor a club, nor a tomahawk, nor any infernal machine: It was a small piece of paper containing fourteen stivers, which he had raised on his New Testament with Psalms at the grocer’s on the “Ouwebrug”; and the thing that held him fast on the Hartenstraat was nothing more or less than his entrance into the magic world of romance. He was going to read “Glorioso.”Glorioso! Reader, there are many imitations, but only one Glorioso. All the Rinaldos and Fra Diavolos are not tobementioned in the same breath with Glorioso, this incomparable hero who carried away countesses by the dozen, plundered popes and cardinals as if they were ordinary fallible people, and made a testament-thief of Walter Pieterse.To be sure, Glorioso was not to blame for this last, certainly not. One ought to be ashamed to be ahero, or a genius, or even a robber, if on this account one is to be held responsible for all the crimes that may be committed years afterwards in the effort to get possession of one’s history.I myself object to any accusation of complicity in those evil deeds that are committed after my death in quenching the thirst for knowledge of my fate. Indeed, I shall never be deterred from a famous career merely by the thought that some one may sell the New Testament to get hold of the “Life and Deeds of Multatuli.”“You rascal, what are you loitering around here for? If you want anything, come in; if you don’t, make yourself scarce.”And now Walter had to go in, or else abandon his cherished Glorioso. But the man who bent over the counter and twisted himself like a crane to open the door and snarl these words at our young hero did not have a face that advised anything like turning back. He was angry. At first Walter had not had the courage to go in; now he did not dare to turn back. He felt himself drawn in. It was as if the book-shop swallowed him.“Glorioso, if you please, M’neer, and here——” He drew that infernal machine from his pocket. “And here is money——”For he had learned from his schoolmates, who had infected him with this craving for romance, that at the circulating library strangers must deposit a forfeit.The shopman seemed to regard himself as “sufficiently protected” by the sum produced. He tookdown a small volume, which was greasy and well worn, and bore both within and without the traces of much unclean enjoyment.I am certain that the “Sermons of Pastor Splitvesel,” which stood undisturbed on the top shelf and looked down contemptuously on the literature of the day, would have been ashamed to bring their spotless binding into contact with so much uncleanliness. But it is not difficult to remain clean in the upper row. I find, therefore, that the “sermons” were unjust; and the same is true of many sermons.After Walter had given his name to the man in a trembling voice, he stuck the reward of his misdeed under his coat and hurried out the door, like a cat making away with the prey for which it has waited for hours.Walter ran and ran, and did not know where to go. He couldn’t go home; he was watched too closely there,—which was not very difficult, as the space was rather limited.He selected quiet streets and finally came to a gateway that he remembered to have seen several times. It was a low, smooth arch, where it always smelled like ashes. Here, as a truant, he had taken that leap! He was with Franz Halleman, who had dared him to cut sacred studies and jump from the top of this arch. Walter did it just because little Franz had questioned his courage.To this escapade he was indebted for his great familiarity with the prophet Habakkuk, whose prophecies he had to copy twelve times as a penalty. Further, the sprain that he got in his big toe on thatoccasion gave him a good barometer in that organ, which always warned him of approaching rain.In a certain sense Habakkuk is to be regarded as marking a transition in Walter’s life,viz.from nursery rhymes to books which deal with big people. For some time he had felt his admiration for “brave Heinriche” to be growing; and he was disgusted with the paper peaches that are distributed as the reward of diligence in the beautiful stories. Of any other peaches he had no knowledge, as the real article was never seen in the houses he visited.Nothing was more natural than that he should most ardently long to talk with the older schoolboys about the wonders of the real world, where people ride in coaches, devastate cities, marry princesses, and stay up in the evening till after 10 o’clock—even if it isn’t a birthday. And then at the table one helps one’s self, and may select just whatever one wants to eat. So think children.Every boy has his heroic age, and humanity, as a whole, has worn the little coat with the big collar.But how far can this comparison be carried? Where does the identity stop? Will the human race become mature? and more than mature?—old? Feeble and childish?How old are we now? Are we boys, youths, men? Or are we already——? No, that would be too unpleasant to think of.Let us suppose that we are just in the exuberance of youth! We are then no longer children exactly, and still we may hope something of the future.Yes, of the future,—when this stifling school atmospherehas been blown away. When we shall take pleasure in the short jacket of the boy that comes after us; when people will be at liberty to be born without any legal permit, and will not be reviled for it; when humanity will speak one language; when metaphysics and religion have been forgotten, and knowledge of nature takes the place of noble birth. When we shall have broken away from the nursery stories.There is some silk for my Chinaman’s pigtail. Some will say it is only flax.Chapter IIWalter thought neither of the heroic age nor of Chinese cues. Without any feeling for the beauty of the landscape, he hurried along till he came to a bridge that spanned a marshy ditch. After looking about carefully to assure himself that he was alone, he selected this bridge for his reading-room, and proceeded at once to devour his robber undisturbed.For a moment I felt tempted to make the reader a participant of Walter’s pleasure by giving a sketch of the immortal work that chained the boy’s attention. But aside from the fact that I am not very well versed in Glorioso—which fact of itself, though, would not prevent me from speaking about him—I have many other things of a more urgent nature to relate, and am compelled therefore to take the reader directly to the Hartenstraat, hoping that he will be able to find his way just as well as if he had crossed the Ouwebrug—the old bridge.Suffice it to say that Walter found the book “very nice.” The virtuous Amalia, in the glare of flaring torches, at the death-bed of her revered mother, in the dismal cypress valley, swearing that her ardent love for the noble robber—through the horrible trapdoor, the rusty chains, her briny tears—in a word, it was stirring! And there was more morality in it, too, than in all the insipid imitations. All the members ofthe band were married and wore gloves. In the cave was an altar, with wax tapers; and those chapters in which girls were abducted always ended with a row of most decorous periods, or with mysterious dashes—which Walter vainly held up to the light in his effort to learn more about it.He read to:“Die, betrayer!” Then it was dark, and he knew that it was time to go home. He was supposed to be taking a walk with the Halleman boys,—who were “such respectable children.” With regret he closed the precious volume and hurried away as fast as he could, for he was afraid he was going to get a whipping for staying away so long.“You will never get permission again”—thus he was always threatened on such occasions. But he understood, of course, that they didn’t mean it. He knew too well that people like to get rid of the children for a while when they are a little short of space at home. And then the little Hallemans were “such extraordinarily respectable children; they lived next to a house with a portico, and recently they had taken off their little caps so politely.”Now, I don’t believe that the Hallemans were any more respectable than other boys of Walter’s acquaintance; and, as I would like to give some reasons for my belief, I am going to relate an incident that had happened some time before this.Walter never got any pocket-money. His mother considered this unnecessary, because he got at home everything that he needed. It mortified him to have to wait for an invitation to join in a game of ball with his companions, and then be reminded that hehad contributed nothing towards buying the ball. In Walter’s time that useful instrument of sport cost three doits—just a trifle. Now I suppose they are more expensive—but no, cheaper, of course, on account of Political Economy.On many occasions he was depressed by reason of this lack of money. We shall see later whether what his mother said was true, or not: that he received at home everything he needed. It is certain that at home he never had the privilege of doing with some little thing as he pleased, which is very nice for children. And for grown-up people, too.The Hallemans—who were so especially respectable—gave him to understand that they had no desire to bear all the expenses. Franz calculated that Walter’s friendship had already cost them nine stivers, which I find high—not for the friendship, but merely as an estimate. Gustave said it was still more; but that is a detail. Gustave, too, had let him have four slate pencils, that he might court “the tall Cecilia,” who wouldn’t have anything to do with him because he wore a jacket stuck in his trousers—the kind small boys wore then. She accepted the pencils, and then made Gustave a present of them for a kiss.The reproaches of the little Hallemans, who were so very respectable, almost drove Walter to despair.“I have told my mother, but she won’t give me anything.”The little Hallemans, who were so respectable, said: “What’s that you’re giving us? You’re a parasite.”This was the first time Walter had ever heard theword, but he knew what it meant. Nothing sharpens the wits like bitterness of heart.“A parasite, a parasite—I’m a parasite,” and he ran off screaming, making a detour in order to avoid the street where Cecilia’s father had a second-hand store. Oh, if she had seen him running through the street crying like a baby—that would have been worse than the breeches pulled up over his jacket!A parasite, a parasite!He met lots of grown-up people who perhaps were parasites, but they were not bawling on this account.Parasite!He saw a policeman, and caught his breath when he got by him, surprised that the man hadn’t arrested him.Parasite!Then came a street-sweeper with his cart, who seemed to rattle that hateful word after him.Our little sufferer remembered that the Halleman boys had once told him what a fortune could be made by peddling peppermint drops. For twenty-four stivers one could buy a big sack full. By selling so and so many for a doit, the profit would be enormous. If one only had the capital to begin! The Hallemans had calculated everything very exactly; for they were not only very respectable, but also very cunning. Cunningness and respectability usually go hand in hand. They had said, all that was needed was the capital. They would attend to laying in the stock, and would assume all responsibility for the sale of the same. If Walter would chip in just a florin, they could raise the rest and all would go well.Parasite.... Parasite....Walter slipped a florin from his mother’s box of savings and brought it to the Halleman boys, who were so remarkably respectable.“Where did you get it?” asked Gustave, but careful not to give Walter time to answer, or to fall into an embarrassing silence.“Where did you get it?”—without any interrogation point—“fine! Franz and I will each add one like it. That’ll make twenty-four, and then we’ll buy the peppermints. There’s a factory on theRosengracht—such a sack for four shillings. Franz and I will do everything. We’ll have more opportunity at school, you understand. Christian Kloskamp has already ordered twelve; he’ll pay after the holidays. We’ll take all the trouble; you needn’t do anything, Walter—and then an equal divide. You can depend upon it.”Walter went home and dreamed of unheard-of wealth. He would put a dollar in his mother’s savings-bank, and buy for Cecilia a lead pencil from the man who had picked holes in the wood-work of his wagon with them. So strong were they! That would be something entirely different from those slate pencils; and if the tall Cecilia still wouldn’t have him, then—but Walter did not care to think further. There are abysses along the path of fancy that we do not dare to sound. We see them instinctively, close the eyes and—I only know that on that evening Walter fell asleep feeling good, expecting soon to have a good conscience over his little theft and hoping that Cecilia would give him a happy heart.Alas, alas! Little Walter had made his calculations without taking into consideration the slyness and respectability of the Hallemans. They lay in wait for him the next day as he came from school. Walter, who had painted to himself how they would be panting under the weight of the great sack; Walter, who was so anxious to know if Christian Kloskamp had taken what he had ordered; Walter, who was burning with curiosity as to the success of the venture—oh, he was bitterly disappointed. Gustave Halleman not only carried no sack of peppermints. What’s more, he had a very grave face. And little Franz looked like virtue itself.“Well, how is everything?” Walter asked, but without saying a word. He was too curious not to ask, and too fearful to express the question otherwise than by opening his mouth and poking out his face.“Don’t you know, Walter, we’ve been thinking about the matter; and there’s a lot to be said against the plan.”Poor Walter! In that moment both his heart and his conscience suffered shipwreck. Away with your dreams of ethical vindication, away with the gaping money-boxes of mothers—away, lead pencil that was to bore a hole in the hard heart of the tall Cecilia—gone, gone, gone, everything lost.“You see, Walter, the mint-drops might melt.”“Y-e-s,” sobbed Walter.“And Christian Kloskamp, who ordered twelve—don’t you know——”“Y-e-s.”I wonder if Christian was likely to melt too.“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 theGracht, 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 institution of marriage, and to many things lying between these extremes.Chapter IIIWe will not try to explain further this fruitful principle of “limitation of space.” 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 anticipation 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. Shewent down to her grave in ignorance of these torn breeches.But Leentje was employed to patch breeches and such things. She received for this seven stivers a week, and every evening a slice of bread and butter.Long after the Habakkuk period, Walter often thought of her humble “Good-evening, Juffrouw; good-evening, M’neer and the young Juffrouwen; good-evening, Walter,” etc.Yes, Walter’s mother was called Juffrouw, on account of the shoe-business. For Juffrouw is the title of women of the lower middle classes, while plain working women are called simply Vrouw. Mevrouw is the title of women of the better classes. And so it is in the Netherlands till to-day: The social structure is a series of classes, graduated in an ascending scale. Single ladies are also called Juffrouw, so that Juffrouw may mean either a young lady or a young matron—who need not necessarily be so young. The young Juffrouwen were Walter’s sisters, who had learned how to dance. His brother had been called M’neer since his appointment as assistant at the “intermediate school,” a sort of charity school now no longer in existence. His mother had spliced his jacket that he might command the respect of the boys, and remarked that the name “Stoffel” scarcely suited him now. This explains why Leentje addressed him as M’neer. To Walter she simply said Walter, for he was only a small boy. Walter owed her three stivers, or, to be exact, twenty-six doits, which he never did pay her. For, years afterward, when hewanted to return the money to her, there were no more doits; and, besides, Leentje was dead.This pained him very much, for he had thought a great deal of her. She was ugly, even dirty, and was stoop-shouldered, too. Stoffel, the schoolmaster, said that she had an evil tongue: She was thought to have started the report that he had once eaten strawberries with sugar in the “Netherlands.” This was a small garden-restaurant.I am willing to admit the truth of all this; but what more could one expect for seven stivers and a slice of bread and butter? I have known duchesses who had larger incomes; and still in social intercourse they were not agreeable.Leentje was stooped as a result of continuous sewing. Her needle kept the whole family clothed; and she knew how to make two jackets and a cap out of an old coat and still have enough pieces left for the gaiters that Stoffel needed for his final examination. He fell through on account of a mistake in Euclid.With the exception of Walter nobody was satisfied with Leentje. I believe they were afraid of spoiling her by too much kindness. Walter’s sisters were always talking about “class” and “rank,” saying that “everyone must stay in his place.” This was for Leentje. Her father had been a cobbler who soled shoes, while the father of the young Juffrouwen had had a store in which “shoes from Paris” were sold. A big difference. For it is much grander to sell something that somebody else has made than to make something one’s self.The mother thought that Leentje might be a little cleaner. But I am going to speak of the price again, and of the difficulty of washing when one has no time, no soap, no room, and no water. At that time waterpipes had not been laid, and, if they had been, it’s a question if the water had ever got as far as Leentje.So, everyone but Walter had a spite against Leentje. He liked her, and was more intimate with her than with anyone else in the house, perhaps because the others could not endure him, and there was nothing left for him to do but to seek consolation from her. For every feeling finds expression, and nothing is lost, either in the moral or in the material world. I could say more about this, but I prefer to drop the subject now, for the organ-grinder under my window is driving me crazy.Walter’s mother called him, “That boy.” His brothers—there were more beside Stoffel—affirmed that he was treacherous and morose, because he spoke little and didn’t care for “marbles.” When he did say anything, they attributed to him a relationship with King Solomon’s cat. His sisters declared he was a little devil. But Walter stood well with Leentje. She consoled him, and considered it disgraceful that the family didn’t make more out of such a boy as Walter. She had seen that he was not a child like ordinary children. And I should scarcely take the trouble to write his story if he had been.Up to a short time after his trip to Hartenstraat, Ash Gate and the old bridge, Leentje was Walter’s sole confidant. To her he read the verses that slenderCecilia had disdained. To her he poured out his grief over the injustice of his teacher Pennewip, who gave him only “Fair,” while to that red-headed Keesje he gave “Very good” underscored—Keesje who couldn’t work an example by himself and always “stuck” in “Holland Counts.”“Poor boy,” said Leentje, “you’re right about it.” They went over into the Bavarian house. It’s a disgrace! And to save a doit on the pound.She claimed that Keesje’s father, who was a butcher, let Pennewip have meat at a reduced price, and that this was what was the matter with all those Holland counts and their several houses.Later Walter looked upon this as a “white lie,” for Pennewip, when examined closely, didn’t look like a man who would carry on a crooked business with beefsteak. But in those days he accepted gladly this frivolous suspicion against the man’s honor as a plaster for his own, which had been hurt by the favoritism towards Keesje. Whenever our honor is touched, or what we regard as our honor, then we think little of the honor of others.When his brothers jeered 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 IVI 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 otherarrangementfor 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 anyone in the face who knew of this crime.” He remarked distinctly that the schoolboys must know of it, for Louis Hopper had already stuck out his tongue at him!And finally, that he “shuddered to cross the new market-place”—in those days criminals were scourged, branded and hanged here—because it reminded him so disagreeably of Juffrouw Laps’s horrible allusion to Walter’s fate.Then followed all sorts of things about Korahs, Dathans and Abirams, whereupon the whole family broke out in a wail. For it was so pathetic.Walter comforted himself with thoughts of Glorioso, and, whenever that “something else” of Juffrouw Laps was spoken of, he just dreamed of his marriage with beautiful Amalia, whose train was carried by six pages. I fancy Juffrouw Laps would have made a pretty face if she had learned of this interpretation of her mysterious climax.All efforts to compel our hero to tell how he had spent that money were in vain. After all known means had been applied, the attempt to force a confession had to be abandoned. Water and bread, water without bread, bread without water, no water and no bread, the preacher, Stoffel, Habakkuk, Juffrouw Laps, tears, the rod—all in vain. Walter was not theboy to betray Glorioso. This was what he had found so shabby of Scelerajoso, who had to pay the penalty, as we have seen.As soon as he got the privilege of walking again with the Hallemans, who were so eminently respectable, he hurried away to the old bridge, near Ash Gate, to continue his thrilling book. He read up to that fatal moment when he had to tell his hero good-bye, and on the last page saw Glorioso, as a major-general, peacefully expire in the arms of the virtuous Alvira.When Walter had returned the book to Hartenstraat his eye was attracted by some almond-cakes at the confectioner’s on the corner. He did with Glorioso just as the Athenians did with Kodrus: No one was worthy to be the successor of such a hero, and within a few days the residue of the New Testament had been converted into stomach-destroying pastry.I ought to add that a part of the “balance” left after that Italian excursion—perhaps the part contributed by the Psalms—was invested in a triple-toned, ear-splitting, soul-searing harmonica, which was finally confiscated by Master Pennewip as being a disturbing element in the schoolroom.Chapter VI don’t feel called upon to pass judgment on the strife between Leentje and Pennewip regarding the latter’s partiality towards Keesje, the butcher’s son. But that fiery feeling for right and justice which has harrassed me from my earliest youth—ah, for years have I waited in vain for justice—and the foolish passion for hunting after mitigating circumstances, even when the misdeed has been proved—all this compels me to say that Pennewip’s lot might be considered a mitigating circumstance for a man convicted of the eight deadly sins.I have found that many great men began their careers as feeders of hogs (see biographical encyclopedias); and it seems to me that this occupation develops those qualities necessary in ruling or advancing mankind.If the theologists should happen to criticise this story, and perhaps accuse me of far-reaching ignorance, because I enumerate one cardinal sin more than they knew of, or of the crime of classifying man as a sort of hog, I reply that, still another new canonical sin could be discovered that they have never studied. And that ought to be as pleasing to them as influenza is to the apothecary.New problems, gentlemen, new problems!And as for our relationship with pigs, just considerthe relation of coal to diamond, and I think everyone will be satisfied—even the theologists.What a magnificent prospect anyone has who spends his tender youth with those grunting coal-diamonds of the animal world! But I have often wondered that in the “Lives of Famous Men” we so seldom read of a school-teacher, for in the school all the ingredients of greatness are abounding.The reverse is more often true. Every day we see banished princes teaching lazy boys. Dionysius and Louis Philippe are not the only ones. I myself once tried to teach an American French. It was no go.If it should ever become customary again to elect kings, I hope the people will elect such persons as have studied men, just as one studies Geography on globes or maps. All virtues, propensities, passions, mistakes, misdeeds, knowledge of which is so indispensable in human society, can be studied much better in the schoolroom. The field is restricted, and can be taken in more readily. The famous statecraft of many a great man, if the truth were known, had its origin in that old tripping trick, which is everything to the three-foot Machiavellis.The task of a schoolmaster is not an easy one. I have never understood why he is not better paid, or, since this must be so, why there are still men who prefer to teach, when on the same pay they might be corporals in the army, and teach the use of firearms, which offers fewer headaches and more fresh air.I would even rather be a preacher; for he does work with people who are interested and come to hear himof their own free will. The teacher has to fight continually with indifference, and with the extremely dangerous rivalry of tops, marbles, and paper-dolls—not to speak of candy, scarlatina and weak mothers.Pennewip was a man of the old school. At least he would seem so to us if we could see him in his gray school jacket and short trousers with buckles, and his brown wig, which he was continually pushing into place. At the first of the week this was always curly, when it was not raining—rain isn’t good for curls; and on Sundays “the man with the curling irons” came.Antiquated? But perhaps this is only imagination. Who knows? perhaps in his day he was quite modern. How soon people will say the same of us! At all events, the man called himself “Master” and his school was a school and not an “Institute.” It is no advance to call things by other than their right names. In his school boys and girls sat together indiscriminately, according to the naïve custom of those days. They learned, or might learn, Reading, Writing, Arithmetic, National History, Psalmody, Sewing, Knitting, and Religion. These were the order of the day, but if anyone distinguished himself by a show of talent, diligence or good behavior, that one received special instruction in versification, an art in which Pennewip took great pleasure.Thus he taught the boys till they were sufficiently advanced to be confirmed. With the help of his wife he gave the girls a “finishing course.” They were graduated with a paternoster done in red on a blackbackground, or perhaps a pierced heart between two flower-pots. Then they were through and ready to become the grandmothers of their own generation.There was no natural science then. Even to-day there is room for improvement along this line. It is said that some advance has been made recently. It is more useful for a child to know how corn grows than to be able to call the name of it in a foreign language. I don’t say that either is incompatible with the other.The public schools were most deficient at the time when Walter and Keesje were slowly crawling around the arena of honor; but I doubt if one could say much more of the “institutes” of to-day. I would advise everyone to visit such a school as he attended when a boy; and I am convinced that after this test many a father who has the welfare of his children at heart will prefer to keep them at home. One comes to the conclusion, that after all in the school of clever Master Miller, who was so clever that he got himself addressed asM’sieuMillaire, precious little was to be learned.Failing to make this test we continue to believe in the infallibility of M’sieu of Millaire. We always consider that one a great man whom we have known in childhood and haven’t seen since.When I remarked a moment ago that school-teachers are paid so niggardly, I didn’t mean that their remuneration was insufficient, considering the quality and quantity of the goods delivered—knowledge, scholarship, education. I only had in mind the bitterness of their lot, and the poor indemnity given to the man who spends his life in a wasp’s nest.In addition to versifying, Pennewip had still another hobby, which gave him more claim to a throne than did anything else. He was possessed with the mania for classifying, a passion known to few, but still of not infrequent occurrence. I have never quite understood the disease; and I gave up my search for the “first cause” as soon as I saw how difficult it is to get around with a hobby-horse taken from somebody else’s stable. So I am going to give only a short sketch of Pennewip’s harmless animal.Everything that he saw, perceived, experienced he divided into families, classes, genera, species and sub-species, and made of the human race a sort of botanical garden, in which he was theLinne. He regarded that as the only possible way to grasp the final purpose of creation and clear up all obscure things, both in and out of school. He even went so far as to say that Walter’s New Testament would have turned up again if Juffrouw Pieterse had only been able to tell to what class the man belonged who had bound the volume in black leather. But that was something she didn’t know.As for myself, I shouldn’t have said a word about Pennewip’s mania for classifying everything, if I hadn’t thought it might help me to give the reader a better picture of our hero and his surroundings. I should have preferred to leave the said Pennewip in undisturbed intercourse with the muses; but we shall have occasion later to refer to his poetic art, when we shall quote some poems by his pupils.After the usual general division into “animate” and “inanimate”—the good man gave the humanrace only one soul—followed a system that looked like a pyramid. On the top was God with the angels and spirits and other accessories, while the oysters and polyps and mussels were crawling about down near the base, or lying still—just as they pleased. Half way up stood kings, members of school-boards, mayors, legislators, theologians and D.D.’s. Next under these were professors and merchants who do not work themselves. Then came doctors of things profane,i. e., those driving double rigs, also lawyers and untitled preachers, the Colonel of the City Militia, the Rector of the Latin School. Philosophers (only those who have developed a system), doctors with one horse, doctors without any horse and poets were further down. Rather low down, and not far from the mussels, was the seventh sub-division of the third class of the “citizen population.” Our hero would come under this sub-section.Citizen Population, Class III., 7th Sub-Division.People Living in Rented Flats.a.Entrance for tenants only. Three-window front. Two stories, with back-rooms. The boys sleep alone, dress, however, with the girls. Fresh straw in case a baby is born. Learning French, poems at Christmas. The girls are sometimes called Lena or Maria, but seldom Louise. Darning. The boys work in offices. One girl kept, sewing-girl, and “person for the rough work.” Washing at home. Read sermons by Palm.Pickledpork on Sundays, with table-cloth, liquor after coffee. Religion. Respectability.b 1.Still three windows. One story. Neighbors live above who ring twice (Videb. 2). Leentje, Mietje; Louise heard seldom. House-door opened with a cord, which is sleek from long use. Sleep in one room. Straw-heaps in cases of confinement. One maid-servant for everything. Sundays cheese, no liquor, but religion and respectability as above.b 2.Neighbors who ring twice. About as above. No maid, only a “person for the rough work.” Seamstress. White table-cloth. Cheese from time to time, only occasionally. Religion as above.c.One story higher. Two-window front. Small projecting back-room. The entire family sleeps in two beds. No trace of straw. The boys are called Louw, Piet, or Gerrit, and become watchmakers or type-setters. A few become sailors. Continual wrangle with the neighbors about the waste-water. Religion as above. Associate with “respectable folk.” Read “Harlemmer” with III. 7, b. 2. No maid, or person for rough work, but a seamstress on seven stivers and a piece of bread and butter.That brings us to Juffrouw Pieterse.The reader will now have a very good idea of Walter’s environment, and will readily understand why I said he had a “city complexion.” That was when we saw him in the Hartenstraat, on the road to fame, or on the road to that nameless “other thing” of Juffrouw Laps. At all events he was on his way to things that will occupy our attention for some time yet.

Walter PieterseChapter II don’t know the year; but, since the reader will be interested to know the time when this story begins, I will give him a few facts to serve as landmarks.My mother complained that provisions were dear, and fuel as well. So it must have been before the discovery of Political Economy. Our servant-girl married the barber’s assistant, who had only one leg. “Such a saving of shoe-leather,” the good little soul argued. But from this fact one might infer that the science of Political Economy had already been discovered.At all events, it was a long time ago. Amsterdam had no sidewalks, import duties were still levied, in some civilized countries there were still gallows, and people didn’t die every day of nervousness. Yes, it was a long time ago.TheHartenstraat! I have never comprehended why this street should be called thus. Perhaps it is an error, and one ought to writeHertenstraat, or something else. I have never found more “heartiness” there than elsewhere; besides, “harts” werenot particularly plentiful, although the place could boast of a poulterer and dealer in venison.I haven’t been there for a long time, and I only remember that theStraatconnects two main canal-streets, canals that I would fill up if I had the power to make Amsterdam one of the most beautiful cities of Europe.My predilection for Amsterdam, our metropolis, does not make me blind to her faults. Among these I would mention first her complete inability to serve as the scene of things romantic. One finds here no masked Dominos on the street, the common people are everywhere open to inspection, no Ghetto, no Templebar, no Chinese quarter, no mysterious courtyard. Whoever commits murder is hanged; and the girls are called “Mietje” and “Jansje”—everything prose.It requires courage to begin a story in a place ending with “dam.” There it is difficult to have “Emeranties” and “Héloises”; but even these would be of little use, since all of these belles have already been profaned.How do the French authors manage, though, to dress up their “Margots” and “Marions” as ideals and protect their “Henris” and“Ernestes”from the trite and trivial? These last remind one ofM’sieu HenriorM’sieu Ernestejust about like our castle embankments remind one of filthy water.Goethe was a courageous man: Gretchen, Klärchen——But I, in the Hartenstraat!However, I am not writing a romance; and even ifI should write one, I don’t see why I shouldn’t publish it as a true story. For it is a true story, the story of one who in his youth was in love with a sawmill and had to endure this torture for a long time.For love is torture, even if it is only love for a sawmill.It will be seen that the story is going to be quite simple, in fact too frail to stand alone. So here and there I am going to plait something in with the thread of the narrative, just as the Chinaman does with his pigtail when it is too thin. He has noEau de Lobor oil from Macassar—but I admit that I have never found at Macassar any berries which yielded the required oil.To begin, in the Hartenstraat was a book-shop and circulating library. A small boy with a city complexion stood on the step and seemed to be unable to open the door. It was evident that he was trying to do something that was beyond his strength.He stretched out his hand towards the door knob repeatedly, but every time he interrupted this motion either by stopping to pull unnecessarily at a big square-cut collar that rested on his shoulders like a yoke, or by uselessly lifting his hand to screen an ingenuous cough.He was apparently lost in the contemplation of the pictures that covered the panes of glass in the door, turning them into a model chart of inconceivable animals, four-cornered trees and impossible soldiers. He was glancing continually to one side, like a criminal who fears that he is going to be caught in the act.It was manifest that he had something in view which must be concealed from passers-by, and from posterity, for that matter. His left hand was thrust under the skirts of his little coat, clutching convulsively at something concealed in his trousers pocket. To look at him one would have thought that Walter contemplated a burglary, or something of the kind.For his name was Walter.It is a fortunate thing that it occurred to me to relate his history; and now I consider it my duty to report that he was entirely innocent of any burglarious or murderous intentions.I only wish I could clear him of other sins as easily as this. The object he was turning and twisting in his left breeches pocket was not a house-key, nor a jimmy, nor a club, nor a tomahawk, nor any infernal machine: It was a small piece of paper containing fourteen stivers, which he had raised on his New Testament with Psalms at the grocer’s on the “Ouwebrug”; and the thing that held him fast on the Hartenstraat was nothing more or less than his entrance into the magic world of romance. He was going to read “Glorioso.”Glorioso! Reader, there are many imitations, but only one Glorioso. All the Rinaldos and Fra Diavolos are not tobementioned in the same breath with Glorioso, this incomparable hero who carried away countesses by the dozen, plundered popes and cardinals as if they were ordinary fallible people, and made a testament-thief of Walter Pieterse.To be sure, Glorioso was not to blame for this last, certainly not. One ought to be ashamed to be ahero, or a genius, or even a robber, if on this account one is to be held responsible for all the crimes that may be committed years afterwards in the effort to get possession of one’s history.I myself object to any accusation of complicity in those evil deeds that are committed after my death in quenching the thirst for knowledge of my fate. Indeed, I shall never be deterred from a famous career merely by the thought that some one may sell the New Testament to get hold of the “Life and Deeds of Multatuli.”“You rascal, what are you loitering around here for? If you want anything, come in; if you don’t, make yourself scarce.”And now Walter had to go in, or else abandon his cherished Glorioso. But the man who bent over the counter and twisted himself like a crane to open the door and snarl these words at our young hero did not have a face that advised anything like turning back. He was angry. At first Walter had not had the courage to go in; now he did not dare to turn back. He felt himself drawn in. It was as if the book-shop swallowed him.“Glorioso, if you please, M’neer, and here——” He drew that infernal machine from his pocket. “And here is money——”For he had learned from his schoolmates, who had infected him with this craving for romance, that at the circulating library strangers must deposit a forfeit.The shopman seemed to regard himself as “sufficiently protected” by the sum produced. He tookdown a small volume, which was greasy and well worn, and bore both within and without the traces of much unclean enjoyment.I am certain that the “Sermons of Pastor Splitvesel,” which stood undisturbed on the top shelf and looked down contemptuously on the literature of the day, would have been ashamed to bring their spotless binding into contact with so much uncleanliness. But it is not difficult to remain clean in the upper row. I find, therefore, that the “sermons” were unjust; and the same is true of many sermons.After Walter had given his name to the man in a trembling voice, he stuck the reward of his misdeed under his coat and hurried out the door, like a cat making away with the prey for which it has waited for hours.Walter ran and ran, and did not know where to go. He couldn’t go home; he was watched too closely there,—which was not very difficult, as the space was rather limited.He selected quiet streets and finally came to a gateway that he remembered to have seen several times. It was a low, smooth arch, where it always smelled like ashes. Here, as a truant, he had taken that leap! He was with Franz Halleman, who had dared him to cut sacred studies and jump from the top of this arch. Walter did it just because little Franz had questioned his courage.To this escapade he was indebted for his great familiarity with the prophet Habakkuk, whose prophecies he had to copy twelve times as a penalty. Further, the sprain that he got in his big toe on thatoccasion gave him a good barometer in that organ, which always warned him of approaching rain.In a certain sense Habakkuk is to be regarded as marking a transition in Walter’s life,viz.from nursery rhymes to books which deal with big people. For some time he had felt his admiration for “brave Heinriche” to be growing; and he was disgusted with the paper peaches that are distributed as the reward of diligence in the beautiful stories. Of any other peaches he had no knowledge, as the real article was never seen in the houses he visited.Nothing was more natural than that he should most ardently long to talk with the older schoolboys about the wonders of the real world, where people ride in coaches, devastate cities, marry princesses, and stay up in the evening till after 10 o’clock—even if it isn’t a birthday. And then at the table one helps one’s self, and may select just whatever one wants to eat. So think children.Every boy has his heroic age, and humanity, as a whole, has worn the little coat with the big collar.But how far can this comparison be carried? Where does the identity stop? Will the human race become mature? and more than mature?—old? Feeble and childish?How old are we now? Are we boys, youths, men? Or are we already——? No, that would be too unpleasant to think of.Let us suppose that we are just in the exuberance of youth! We are then no longer children exactly, and still we may hope something of the future.Yes, of the future,—when this stifling school atmospherehas been blown away. When we shall take pleasure in the short jacket of the boy that comes after us; when people will be at liberty to be born without any legal permit, and will not be reviled for it; when humanity will speak one language; when metaphysics and religion have been forgotten, and knowledge of nature takes the place of noble birth. When we shall have broken away from the nursery stories.There is some silk for my Chinaman’s pigtail. Some will say it is only flax.

I don’t know the year; but, since the reader will be interested to know the time when this story begins, I will give him a few facts to serve as landmarks.

My mother complained that provisions were dear, and fuel as well. So it must have been before the discovery of Political Economy. Our servant-girl married the barber’s assistant, who had only one leg. “Such a saving of shoe-leather,” the good little soul argued. But from this fact one might infer that the science of Political Economy had already been discovered.

At all events, it was a long time ago. Amsterdam had no sidewalks, import duties were still levied, in some civilized countries there were still gallows, and people didn’t die every day of nervousness. Yes, it was a long time ago.

TheHartenstraat! I have never comprehended why this street should be called thus. Perhaps it is an error, and one ought to writeHertenstraat, or something else. I have never found more “heartiness” there than elsewhere; besides, “harts” werenot particularly plentiful, although the place could boast of a poulterer and dealer in venison.

I haven’t been there for a long time, and I only remember that theStraatconnects two main canal-streets, canals that I would fill up if I had the power to make Amsterdam one of the most beautiful cities of Europe.

My predilection for Amsterdam, our metropolis, does not make me blind to her faults. Among these I would mention first her complete inability to serve as the scene of things romantic. One finds here no masked Dominos on the street, the common people are everywhere open to inspection, no Ghetto, no Templebar, no Chinese quarter, no mysterious courtyard. Whoever commits murder is hanged; and the girls are called “Mietje” and “Jansje”—everything prose.

It requires courage to begin a story in a place ending with “dam.” There it is difficult to have “Emeranties” and “Héloises”; but even these would be of little use, since all of these belles have already been profaned.

How do the French authors manage, though, to dress up their “Margots” and “Marions” as ideals and protect their “Henris” and“Ernestes”from the trite and trivial? These last remind one ofM’sieu HenriorM’sieu Ernestejust about like our castle embankments remind one of filthy water.

Goethe was a courageous man: Gretchen, Klärchen——

But I, in the Hartenstraat!

However, I am not writing a romance; and even ifI should write one, I don’t see why I shouldn’t publish it as a true story. For it is a true story, the story of one who in his youth was in love with a sawmill and had to endure this torture for a long time.

For love is torture, even if it is only love for a sawmill.

It will be seen that the story is going to be quite simple, in fact too frail to stand alone. So here and there I am going to plait something in with the thread of the narrative, just as the Chinaman does with his pigtail when it is too thin. He has noEau de Lobor oil from Macassar—but I admit that I have never found at Macassar any berries which yielded the required oil.

To begin, in the Hartenstraat was a book-shop and circulating library. A small boy with a city complexion stood on the step and seemed to be unable to open the door. It was evident that he was trying to do something that was beyond his strength.

He stretched out his hand towards the door knob repeatedly, but every time he interrupted this motion either by stopping to pull unnecessarily at a big square-cut collar that rested on his shoulders like a yoke, or by uselessly lifting his hand to screen an ingenuous cough.

He was apparently lost in the contemplation of the pictures that covered the panes of glass in the door, turning them into a model chart of inconceivable animals, four-cornered trees and impossible soldiers. He was glancing continually to one side, like a criminal who fears that he is going to be caught in the act.It was manifest that he had something in view which must be concealed from passers-by, and from posterity, for that matter. His left hand was thrust under the skirts of his little coat, clutching convulsively at something concealed in his trousers pocket. To look at him one would have thought that Walter contemplated a burglary, or something of the kind.

For his name was Walter.

It is a fortunate thing that it occurred to me to relate his history; and now I consider it my duty to report that he was entirely innocent of any burglarious or murderous intentions.

I only wish I could clear him of other sins as easily as this. The object he was turning and twisting in his left breeches pocket was not a house-key, nor a jimmy, nor a club, nor a tomahawk, nor any infernal machine: It was a small piece of paper containing fourteen stivers, which he had raised on his New Testament with Psalms at the grocer’s on the “Ouwebrug”; and the thing that held him fast on the Hartenstraat was nothing more or less than his entrance into the magic world of romance. He was going to read “Glorioso.”

Glorioso! Reader, there are many imitations, but only one Glorioso. All the Rinaldos and Fra Diavolos are not tobementioned in the same breath with Glorioso, this incomparable hero who carried away countesses by the dozen, plundered popes and cardinals as if they were ordinary fallible people, and made a testament-thief of Walter Pieterse.

To be sure, Glorioso was not to blame for this last, certainly not. One ought to be ashamed to be ahero, or a genius, or even a robber, if on this account one is to be held responsible for all the crimes that may be committed years afterwards in the effort to get possession of one’s history.

I myself object to any accusation of complicity in those evil deeds that are committed after my death in quenching the thirst for knowledge of my fate. Indeed, I shall never be deterred from a famous career merely by the thought that some one may sell the New Testament to get hold of the “Life and Deeds of Multatuli.”

“You rascal, what are you loitering around here for? If you want anything, come in; if you don’t, make yourself scarce.”

And now Walter had to go in, or else abandon his cherished Glorioso. But the man who bent over the counter and twisted himself like a crane to open the door and snarl these words at our young hero did not have a face that advised anything like turning back. He was angry. At first Walter had not had the courage to go in; now he did not dare to turn back. He felt himself drawn in. It was as if the book-shop swallowed him.

“Glorioso, if you please, M’neer, and here——” He drew that infernal machine from his pocket. “And here is money——”

For he had learned from his schoolmates, who had infected him with this craving for romance, that at the circulating library strangers must deposit a forfeit.

The shopman seemed to regard himself as “sufficiently protected” by the sum produced. He tookdown a small volume, which was greasy and well worn, and bore both within and without the traces of much unclean enjoyment.

I am certain that the “Sermons of Pastor Splitvesel,” which stood undisturbed on the top shelf and looked down contemptuously on the literature of the day, would have been ashamed to bring their spotless binding into contact with so much uncleanliness. But it is not difficult to remain clean in the upper row. I find, therefore, that the “sermons” were unjust; and the same is true of many sermons.

After Walter had given his name to the man in a trembling voice, he stuck the reward of his misdeed under his coat and hurried out the door, like a cat making away with the prey for which it has waited for hours.

Walter ran and ran, and did not know where to go. He couldn’t go home; he was watched too closely there,—which was not very difficult, as the space was rather limited.

He selected quiet streets and finally came to a gateway that he remembered to have seen several times. It was a low, smooth arch, where it always smelled like ashes. Here, as a truant, he had taken that leap! He was with Franz Halleman, who had dared him to cut sacred studies and jump from the top of this arch. Walter did it just because little Franz had questioned his courage.

To this escapade he was indebted for his great familiarity with the prophet Habakkuk, whose prophecies he had to copy twelve times as a penalty. Further, the sprain that he got in his big toe on thatoccasion gave him a good barometer in that organ, which always warned him of approaching rain.

In a certain sense Habakkuk is to be regarded as marking a transition in Walter’s life,viz.from nursery rhymes to books which deal with big people. For some time he had felt his admiration for “brave Heinriche” to be growing; and he was disgusted with the paper peaches that are distributed as the reward of diligence in the beautiful stories. Of any other peaches he had no knowledge, as the real article was never seen in the houses he visited.

Nothing was more natural than that he should most ardently long to talk with the older schoolboys about the wonders of the real world, where people ride in coaches, devastate cities, marry princesses, and stay up in the evening till after 10 o’clock—even if it isn’t a birthday. And then at the table one helps one’s self, and may select just whatever one wants to eat. So think children.

Every boy has his heroic age, and humanity, as a whole, has worn the little coat with the big collar.

But how far can this comparison be carried? Where does the identity stop? Will the human race become mature? and more than mature?—old? Feeble and childish?

How old are we now? Are we boys, youths, men? Or are we already——? No, that would be too unpleasant to think of.

Let us suppose that we are just in the exuberance of youth! We are then no longer children exactly, and still we may hope something of the future.

Yes, of the future,—when this stifling school atmospherehas been blown away. When we shall take pleasure in the short jacket of the boy that comes after us; when people will be at liberty to be born without any legal permit, and will not be reviled for it; when humanity will speak one language; when metaphysics and religion have been forgotten, and knowledge of nature takes the place of noble birth. When we shall have broken away from the nursery stories.

There is some silk for my Chinaman’s pigtail. Some will say it is only flax.

Chapter IIWalter thought neither of the heroic age nor of Chinese cues. Without any feeling for the beauty of the landscape, he hurried along till he came to a bridge that spanned a marshy ditch. After looking about carefully to assure himself that he was alone, he selected this bridge for his reading-room, and proceeded at once to devour his robber undisturbed.For a moment I felt tempted to make the reader a participant of Walter’s pleasure by giving a sketch of the immortal work that chained the boy’s attention. But aside from the fact that I am not very well versed in Glorioso—which fact of itself, though, would not prevent me from speaking about him—I have many other things of a more urgent nature to relate, and am compelled therefore to take the reader directly to the Hartenstraat, hoping that he will be able to find his way just as well as if he had crossed the Ouwebrug—the old bridge.Suffice it to say that Walter found the book “very nice.” The virtuous Amalia, in the glare of flaring torches, at the death-bed of her revered mother, in the dismal cypress valley, swearing that her ardent love for the noble robber—through the horrible trapdoor, the rusty chains, her briny tears—in a word, it was stirring! And there was more morality in it, too, than in all the insipid imitations. All the members ofthe band were married and wore gloves. In the cave was an altar, with wax tapers; and those chapters in which girls were abducted always ended with a row of most decorous periods, or with mysterious dashes—which Walter vainly held up to the light in his effort to learn more about it.He read to:“Die, betrayer!” Then it was dark, and he knew that it was time to go home. He was supposed to be taking a walk with the Halleman boys,—who were “such respectable children.” With regret he closed the precious volume and hurried away as fast as he could, for he was afraid he was going to get a whipping for staying away so long.“You will never get permission again”—thus he was always threatened on such occasions. But he understood, of course, that they didn’t mean it. He knew too well that people like to get rid of the children for a while when they are a little short of space at home. And then the little Hallemans were “such extraordinarily respectable children; they lived next to a house with a portico, and recently they had taken off their little caps so politely.”Now, I don’t believe that the Hallemans were any more respectable than other boys of Walter’s acquaintance; and, as I would like to give some reasons for my belief, I am going to relate an incident that had happened some time before this.Walter never got any pocket-money. His mother considered this unnecessary, because he got at home everything that he needed. It mortified him to have to wait for an invitation to join in a game of ball with his companions, and then be reminded that hehad contributed nothing towards buying the ball. In Walter’s time that useful instrument of sport cost three doits—just a trifle. Now I suppose they are more expensive—but no, cheaper, of course, on account of Political Economy.On many occasions he was depressed by reason of this lack of money. We shall see later whether what his mother said was true, or not: that he received at home everything he needed. It is certain that at home he never had the privilege of doing with some little thing as he pleased, which is very nice for children. And for grown-up people, too.The Hallemans—who were so especially respectable—gave him to understand that they had no desire to bear all the expenses. Franz calculated that Walter’s friendship had already cost them nine stivers, which I find high—not for the friendship, but merely as an estimate. Gustave said it was still more; but that is a detail. Gustave, too, had let him have four slate pencils, that he might court “the tall Cecilia,” who wouldn’t have anything to do with him because he wore a jacket stuck in his trousers—the kind small boys wore then. She accepted the pencils, and then made Gustave a present of them for a kiss.The reproaches of the little Hallemans, who were so very respectable, almost drove Walter to despair.“I have told my mother, but she won’t give me anything.”The little Hallemans, who were so respectable, said: “What’s that you’re giving us? You’re a parasite.”This was the first time Walter had ever heard theword, but he knew what it meant. Nothing sharpens the wits like bitterness of heart.“A parasite, a parasite—I’m a parasite,” and he ran off screaming, making a detour in order to avoid the street where Cecilia’s father had a second-hand store. Oh, if she had seen him running through the street crying like a baby—that would have been worse than the breeches pulled up over his jacket!A parasite, a parasite!He met lots of grown-up people who perhaps were parasites, but they were not bawling on this account.Parasite!He saw a policeman, and caught his breath when he got by him, surprised that the man hadn’t arrested him.Parasite!Then came a street-sweeper with his cart, who seemed to rattle that hateful word after him.Our little sufferer remembered that the Halleman boys had once told him what a fortune could be made by peddling peppermint drops. For twenty-four stivers one could buy a big sack full. By selling so and so many for a doit, the profit would be enormous. If one only had the capital to begin! The Hallemans had calculated everything very exactly; for they were not only very respectable, but also very cunning. Cunningness and respectability usually go hand in hand. They had said, all that was needed was the capital. They would attend to laying in the stock, and would assume all responsibility for the sale of the same. If Walter would chip in just a florin, they could raise the rest and all would go well.Parasite.... Parasite....Walter slipped a florin from his mother’s box of savings and brought it to the Halleman boys, who were so remarkably respectable.“Where did you get it?” asked Gustave, but careful not to give Walter time to answer, or to fall into an embarrassing silence.“Where did you get it?”—without any interrogation point—“fine! Franz and I will each add one like it. That’ll make twenty-four, and then we’ll buy the peppermints. There’s a factory on theRosengracht—such a sack for four shillings. Franz and I will do everything. We’ll have more opportunity at school, you understand. Christian Kloskamp has already ordered twelve; he’ll pay after the holidays. We’ll take all the trouble; you needn’t do anything, Walter—and then an equal divide. You can depend upon it.”Walter went home and dreamed of unheard-of wealth. He would put a dollar in his mother’s savings-bank, and buy for Cecilia a lead pencil from the man who had picked holes in the wood-work of his wagon with them. So strong were they! That would be something entirely different from those slate pencils; and if the tall Cecilia still wouldn’t have him, then—but Walter did not care to think further. There are abysses along the path of fancy that we do not dare to sound. We see them instinctively, close the eyes and—I only know that on that evening Walter fell asleep feeling good, expecting soon to have a good conscience over his little theft and hoping that Cecilia would give him a happy heart.Alas, alas! Little Walter had made his calculations without taking into consideration the slyness and respectability of the Hallemans. They lay in wait for him the next day as he came from school. Walter, who had painted to himself how they would be panting under the weight of the great sack; Walter, who was so anxious to know if Christian Kloskamp had taken what he had ordered; Walter, who was burning with curiosity as to the success of the venture—oh, he was bitterly disappointed. Gustave Halleman not only carried no sack of peppermints. What’s more, he had a very grave face. And little Franz looked like virtue itself.“Well, how is everything?” Walter asked, but without saying a word. He was too curious not to ask, and too fearful to express the question otherwise than by opening his mouth and poking out his face.“Don’t you know, Walter, we’ve been thinking about the matter; and there’s a lot to be said against the plan.”Poor Walter! In that moment both his heart and his conscience suffered shipwreck. Away with your dreams of ethical vindication, away with the gaping money-boxes of mothers—away, lead pencil that was to bore a hole in the hard heart of the tall Cecilia—gone, gone, gone, everything lost.“You see, Walter, the mint-drops might melt.”“Y-e-s,” sobbed Walter.“And Christian Kloskamp, who ordered twelve—don’t you know——”“Y-e-s.”I wonder if Christian was likely to melt too.“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 theGracht, 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 institution of marriage, and to many things lying between these extremes.

Walter thought neither of the heroic age nor of Chinese cues. Without any feeling for the beauty of the landscape, he hurried along till he came to a bridge that spanned a marshy ditch. After looking about carefully to assure himself that he was alone, he selected this bridge for his reading-room, and proceeded at once to devour his robber undisturbed.

For a moment I felt tempted to make the reader a participant of Walter’s pleasure by giving a sketch of the immortal work that chained the boy’s attention. But aside from the fact that I am not very well versed in Glorioso—which fact of itself, though, would not prevent me from speaking about him—I have many other things of a more urgent nature to relate, and am compelled therefore to take the reader directly to the Hartenstraat, hoping that he will be able to find his way just as well as if he had crossed the Ouwebrug—the old bridge.

Suffice it to say that Walter found the book “very nice.” The virtuous Amalia, in the glare of flaring torches, at the death-bed of her revered mother, in the dismal cypress valley, swearing that her ardent love for the noble robber—through the horrible trapdoor, the rusty chains, her briny tears—in a word, it was stirring! And there was more morality in it, too, than in all the insipid imitations. All the members ofthe band were married and wore gloves. In the cave was an altar, with wax tapers; and those chapters in which girls were abducted always ended with a row of most decorous periods, or with mysterious dashes—which Walter vainly held up to the light in his effort to learn more about it.

He read to:“Die, betrayer!” Then it was dark, and he knew that it was time to go home. He was supposed to be taking a walk with the Halleman boys,—who were “such respectable children.” With regret he closed the precious volume and hurried away as fast as he could, for he was afraid he was going to get a whipping for staying away so long.

“You will never get permission again”—thus he was always threatened on such occasions. But he understood, of course, that they didn’t mean it. He knew too well that people like to get rid of the children for a while when they are a little short of space at home. And then the little Hallemans were “such extraordinarily respectable children; they lived next to a house with a portico, and recently they had taken off their little caps so politely.”

Now, I don’t believe that the Hallemans were any more respectable than other boys of Walter’s acquaintance; and, as I would like to give some reasons for my belief, I am going to relate an incident that had happened some time before this.

Walter never got any pocket-money. His mother considered this unnecessary, because he got at home everything that he needed. It mortified him to have to wait for an invitation to join in a game of ball with his companions, and then be reminded that hehad contributed nothing towards buying the ball. In Walter’s time that useful instrument of sport cost three doits—just a trifle. Now I suppose they are more expensive—but no, cheaper, of course, on account of Political Economy.

On many occasions he was depressed by reason of this lack of money. We shall see later whether what his mother said was true, or not: that he received at home everything he needed. It is certain that at home he never had the privilege of doing with some little thing as he pleased, which is very nice for children. And for grown-up people, too.

The Hallemans—who were so especially respectable—gave him to understand that they had no desire to bear all the expenses. Franz calculated that Walter’s friendship had already cost them nine stivers, which I find high—not for the friendship, but merely as an estimate. Gustave said it was still more; but that is a detail. Gustave, too, had let him have four slate pencils, that he might court “the tall Cecilia,” who wouldn’t have anything to do with him because he wore a jacket stuck in his trousers—the kind small boys wore then. She accepted the pencils, and then made Gustave a present of them for a kiss.

The reproaches of the little Hallemans, who were so very respectable, almost drove Walter to despair.

“I have told my mother, but she won’t give me anything.”

The little Hallemans, who were so respectable, said: “What’s that you’re giving us? You’re a parasite.”

This was the first time Walter had ever heard theword, but he knew what it meant. Nothing sharpens the wits like bitterness of heart.

“A parasite, a parasite—I’m a parasite,” and he ran off screaming, making a detour in order to avoid the street where Cecilia’s father had a second-hand store. Oh, if she had seen him running through the street crying like a baby—that would have been worse than the breeches pulled up over his jacket!

A parasite, a parasite!

He met lots of grown-up people who perhaps were parasites, but they were not bawling on this account.

Parasite!

He saw a policeman, and caught his breath when he got by him, surprised that the man hadn’t arrested him.

Parasite!

Then came a street-sweeper with his cart, who seemed to rattle that hateful word after him.

Our little sufferer remembered that the Halleman boys had once told him what a fortune could be made by peddling peppermint drops. For twenty-four stivers one could buy a big sack full. By selling so and so many for a doit, the profit would be enormous. If one only had the capital to begin! The Hallemans had calculated everything very exactly; for they were not only very respectable, but also very cunning. Cunningness and respectability usually go hand in hand. They had said, all that was needed was the capital. They would attend to laying in the stock, and would assume all responsibility for the sale of the same. If Walter would chip in just a florin, they could raise the rest and all would go well.

Parasite.... Parasite....

Walter slipped a florin from his mother’s box of savings and brought it to the Halleman boys, who were so remarkably respectable.

“Where did you get it?” asked Gustave, but careful not to give Walter time to answer, or to fall into an embarrassing silence.

“Where did you get it?”—without any interrogation point—“fine! Franz and I will each add one like it. That’ll make twenty-four, and then we’ll buy the peppermints. There’s a factory on theRosengracht—such a sack for four shillings. Franz and I will do everything. We’ll have more opportunity at school, you understand. Christian Kloskamp has already ordered twelve; he’ll pay after the holidays. We’ll take all the trouble; you needn’t do anything, Walter—and then an equal divide. You can depend upon it.”

Walter went home and dreamed of unheard-of wealth. He would put a dollar in his mother’s savings-bank, and buy for Cecilia a lead pencil from the man who had picked holes in the wood-work of his wagon with them. So strong were they! That would be something entirely different from those slate pencils; and if the tall Cecilia still wouldn’t have him, then—but Walter did not care to think further. There are abysses along the path of fancy that we do not dare to sound. We see them instinctively, close the eyes and—I only know that on that evening Walter fell asleep feeling good, expecting soon to have a good conscience over his little theft and hoping that Cecilia would give him a happy heart.

Alas, alas! Little Walter had made his calculations without taking into consideration the slyness and respectability of the Hallemans. They lay in wait for him the next day as he came from school. Walter, who had painted to himself how they would be panting under the weight of the great sack; Walter, who was so anxious to know if Christian Kloskamp had taken what he had ordered; Walter, who was burning with curiosity as to the success of the venture—oh, he was bitterly disappointed. Gustave Halleman not only carried no sack of peppermints. What’s more, he had a very grave face. And little Franz looked like virtue itself.

“Well, how is everything?” Walter asked, but without saying a word. He was too curious not to ask, and too fearful to express the question otherwise than by opening his mouth and poking out his face.

“Don’t you know, Walter, we’ve been thinking about the matter; and there’s a lot to be said against the plan.”

Poor Walter! In that moment both his heart and his conscience suffered shipwreck. Away with your dreams of ethical vindication, away with the gaping money-boxes of mothers—away, lead pencil that was to bore a hole in the hard heart of the tall Cecilia—gone, gone, gone, everything lost.

“You see, Walter, the mint-drops might melt.”

“Y-e-s,” sobbed Walter.

“And Christian Kloskamp, who ordered twelve—don’t you know——”

“Y-e-s.”

I wonder if Christian was likely to melt too.

“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 theGracht, 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 institution of marriage, and to many things lying between these extremes.

Chapter IIIWe will not try to explain further this fruitful principle of “limitation of space.” 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 anticipation 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. Shewent down to her grave in ignorance of these torn breeches.But Leentje was employed to patch breeches and such things. She received for this seven stivers a week, and every evening a slice of bread and butter.Long after the Habakkuk period, Walter often thought of her humble “Good-evening, Juffrouw; good-evening, M’neer and the young Juffrouwen; good-evening, Walter,” etc.Yes, Walter’s mother was called Juffrouw, on account of the shoe-business. For Juffrouw is the title of women of the lower middle classes, while plain working women are called simply Vrouw. Mevrouw is the title of women of the better classes. And so it is in the Netherlands till to-day: The social structure is a series of classes, graduated in an ascending scale. Single ladies are also called Juffrouw, so that Juffrouw may mean either a young lady or a young matron—who need not necessarily be so young. The young Juffrouwen were Walter’s sisters, who had learned how to dance. His brother had been called M’neer since his appointment as assistant at the “intermediate school,” a sort of charity school now no longer in existence. His mother had spliced his jacket that he might command the respect of the boys, and remarked that the name “Stoffel” scarcely suited him now. This explains why Leentje addressed him as M’neer. To Walter she simply said Walter, for he was only a small boy. Walter owed her three stivers, or, to be exact, twenty-six doits, which he never did pay her. For, years afterward, when hewanted to return the money to her, there were no more doits; and, besides, Leentje was dead.This pained him very much, for he had thought a great deal of her. She was ugly, even dirty, and was stoop-shouldered, too. Stoffel, the schoolmaster, said that she had an evil tongue: She was thought to have started the report that he had once eaten strawberries with sugar in the “Netherlands.” This was a small garden-restaurant.I am willing to admit the truth of all this; but what more could one expect for seven stivers and a slice of bread and butter? I have known duchesses who had larger incomes; and still in social intercourse they were not agreeable.Leentje was stooped as a result of continuous sewing. Her needle kept the whole family clothed; and she knew how to make two jackets and a cap out of an old coat and still have enough pieces left for the gaiters that Stoffel needed for his final examination. He fell through on account of a mistake in Euclid.With the exception of Walter nobody was satisfied with Leentje. I believe they were afraid of spoiling her by too much kindness. Walter’s sisters were always talking about “class” and “rank,” saying that “everyone must stay in his place.” This was for Leentje. Her father had been a cobbler who soled shoes, while the father of the young Juffrouwen had had a store in which “shoes from Paris” were sold. A big difference. For it is much grander to sell something that somebody else has made than to make something one’s self.The mother thought that Leentje might be a little cleaner. But I am going to speak of the price again, and of the difficulty of washing when one has no time, no soap, no room, and no water. At that time waterpipes had not been laid, and, if they had been, it’s a question if the water had ever got as far as Leentje.So, everyone but Walter had a spite against Leentje. He liked her, and was more intimate with her than with anyone else in the house, perhaps because the others could not endure him, and there was nothing left for him to do but to seek consolation from her. For every feeling finds expression, and nothing is lost, either in the moral or in the material world. I could say more about this, but I prefer to drop the subject now, for the organ-grinder under my window is driving me crazy.Walter’s mother called him, “That boy.” His brothers—there were more beside Stoffel—affirmed that he was treacherous and morose, because he spoke little and didn’t care for “marbles.” When he did say anything, they attributed to him a relationship with King Solomon’s cat. His sisters declared he was a little devil. But Walter stood well with Leentje. She consoled him, and considered it disgraceful that the family didn’t make more out of such a boy as Walter. She had seen that he was not a child like ordinary children. And I should scarcely take the trouble to write his story if he had been.Up to a short time after his trip to Hartenstraat, Ash Gate and the old bridge, Leentje was Walter’s sole confidant. To her he read the verses that slenderCecilia had disdained. To her he poured out his grief over the injustice of his teacher Pennewip, who gave him only “Fair,” while to that red-headed Keesje he gave “Very good” underscored—Keesje who couldn’t work an example by himself and always “stuck” in “Holland Counts.”“Poor boy,” said Leentje, “you’re right about it.” They went over into the Bavarian house. It’s a disgrace! And to save a doit on the pound.She claimed that Keesje’s father, who was a butcher, let Pennewip have meat at a reduced price, and that this was what was the matter with all those Holland counts and their several houses.Later Walter looked upon this as a “white lie,” for Pennewip, when examined closely, didn’t look like a man who would carry on a crooked business with beefsteak. But in those days he accepted gladly this frivolous suspicion against the man’s honor as a plaster for his own, which had been hurt by the favoritism towards Keesje. Whenever our honor is touched, or what we regard as our honor, then we think little of the honor of others.When his brothers jeered 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.”

We will not try to explain further this fruitful principle of “limitation of space.” 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 anticipation 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. Shewent down to her grave in ignorance of these torn breeches.

But Leentje was employed to patch breeches and such things. She received for this seven stivers a week, and every evening a slice of bread and butter.

Long after the Habakkuk period, Walter often thought of her humble “Good-evening, Juffrouw; good-evening, M’neer and the young Juffrouwen; good-evening, Walter,” etc.

Yes, Walter’s mother was called Juffrouw, on account of the shoe-business. For Juffrouw is the title of women of the lower middle classes, while plain working women are called simply Vrouw. Mevrouw is the title of women of the better classes. And so it is in the Netherlands till to-day: The social structure is a series of classes, graduated in an ascending scale. Single ladies are also called Juffrouw, so that Juffrouw may mean either a young lady or a young matron—who need not necessarily be so young. The young Juffrouwen were Walter’s sisters, who had learned how to dance. His brother had been called M’neer since his appointment as assistant at the “intermediate school,” a sort of charity school now no longer in existence. His mother had spliced his jacket that he might command the respect of the boys, and remarked that the name “Stoffel” scarcely suited him now. This explains why Leentje addressed him as M’neer. To Walter she simply said Walter, for he was only a small boy. Walter owed her three stivers, or, to be exact, twenty-six doits, which he never did pay her. For, years afterward, when hewanted to return the money to her, there were no more doits; and, besides, Leentje was dead.

This pained him very much, for he had thought a great deal of her. She was ugly, even dirty, and was stoop-shouldered, too. Stoffel, the schoolmaster, said that she had an evil tongue: She was thought to have started the report that he had once eaten strawberries with sugar in the “Netherlands.” This was a small garden-restaurant.

I am willing to admit the truth of all this; but what more could one expect for seven stivers and a slice of bread and butter? I have known duchesses who had larger incomes; and still in social intercourse they were not agreeable.

Leentje was stooped as a result of continuous sewing. Her needle kept the whole family clothed; and she knew how to make two jackets and a cap out of an old coat and still have enough pieces left for the gaiters that Stoffel needed for his final examination. He fell through on account of a mistake in Euclid.

With the exception of Walter nobody was satisfied with Leentje. I believe they were afraid of spoiling her by too much kindness. Walter’s sisters were always talking about “class” and “rank,” saying that “everyone must stay in his place.” This was for Leentje. Her father had been a cobbler who soled shoes, while the father of the young Juffrouwen had had a store in which “shoes from Paris” were sold. A big difference. For it is much grander to sell something that somebody else has made than to make something one’s self.

The mother thought that Leentje might be a little cleaner. But I am going to speak of the price again, and of the difficulty of washing when one has no time, no soap, no room, and no water. At that time waterpipes had not been laid, and, if they had been, it’s a question if the water had ever got as far as Leentje.

So, everyone but Walter had a spite against Leentje. He liked her, and was more intimate with her than with anyone else in the house, perhaps because the others could not endure him, and there was nothing left for him to do but to seek consolation from her. For every feeling finds expression, and nothing is lost, either in the moral or in the material world. I could say more about this, but I prefer to drop the subject now, for the organ-grinder under my window is driving me crazy.

Walter’s mother called him, “That boy.” His brothers—there were more beside Stoffel—affirmed that he was treacherous and morose, because he spoke little and didn’t care for “marbles.” When he did say anything, they attributed to him a relationship with King Solomon’s cat. His sisters declared he was a little devil. But Walter stood well with Leentje. She consoled him, and considered it disgraceful that the family didn’t make more out of such a boy as Walter. She had seen that he was not a child like ordinary children. And I should scarcely take the trouble to write his story if he had been.

Up to a short time after his trip to Hartenstraat, Ash Gate and the old bridge, Leentje was Walter’s sole confidant. To her he read the verses that slenderCecilia had disdained. To her he poured out his grief over the injustice of his teacher Pennewip, who gave him only “Fair,” while to that red-headed Keesje he gave “Very good” underscored—Keesje who couldn’t work an example by himself and always “stuck” in “Holland Counts.”

“Poor boy,” said Leentje, “you’re right about it.” They went over into the Bavarian house. It’s a disgrace! And to save a doit on the pound.

She claimed that Keesje’s father, who was a butcher, let Pennewip have meat at a reduced price, and that this was what was the matter with all those Holland counts and their several houses.

Later Walter looked upon this as a “white lie,” for Pennewip, when examined closely, didn’t look like a man who would carry on a crooked business with beefsteak. But in those days he accepted gladly this frivolous suspicion against the man’s honor as a plaster for his own, which had been hurt by the favoritism towards Keesje. Whenever our honor is touched, or what we regard as our honor, then we think little of the honor of others.

When his brothers jeered 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 IVI 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 otherarrangementfor 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 anyone in the face who knew of this crime.” He remarked distinctly that the schoolboys must know of it, for Louis Hopper had already stuck out his tongue at him!And finally, that he “shuddered to cross the new market-place”—in those days criminals were scourged, branded and hanged here—because it reminded him so disagreeably of Juffrouw Laps’s horrible allusion to Walter’s fate.Then followed all sorts of things about Korahs, Dathans and Abirams, whereupon the whole family broke out in a wail. For it was so pathetic.Walter comforted himself with thoughts of Glorioso, and, whenever that “something else” of Juffrouw Laps was spoken of, he just dreamed of his marriage with beautiful Amalia, whose train was carried by six pages. I fancy Juffrouw Laps would have made a pretty face if she had learned of this interpretation of her mysterious climax.All efforts to compel our hero to tell how he had spent that money were in vain. After all known means had been applied, the attempt to force a confession had to be abandoned. Water and bread, water without bread, bread without water, no water and no bread, the preacher, Stoffel, Habakkuk, Juffrouw Laps, tears, the rod—all in vain. Walter was not theboy to betray Glorioso. This was what he had found so shabby of Scelerajoso, who had to pay the penalty, as we have seen.As soon as he got the privilege of walking again with the Hallemans, who were so eminently respectable, he hurried away to the old bridge, near Ash Gate, to continue his thrilling book. He read up to that fatal moment when he had to tell his hero good-bye, and on the last page saw Glorioso, as a major-general, peacefully expire in the arms of the virtuous Alvira.When Walter had returned the book to Hartenstraat his eye was attracted by some almond-cakes at the confectioner’s on the corner. He did with Glorioso just as the Athenians did with Kodrus: No one was worthy to be the successor of such a hero, and within a few days the residue of the New Testament had been converted into stomach-destroying pastry.I ought to add that a part of the “balance” left after that Italian excursion—perhaps the part contributed by the Psalms—was invested in a triple-toned, ear-splitting, soul-searing harmonica, which was finally confiscated by Master Pennewip as being a disturbing element in the schoolroom.

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 otherarrangementfor 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 anyone in the face who knew of this crime.” He remarked distinctly that the schoolboys must know of it, for Louis Hopper had already stuck out his tongue at him!

And finally, that he “shuddered to cross the new market-place”—in those days criminals were scourged, branded and hanged here—because it reminded him so disagreeably of Juffrouw Laps’s horrible allusion to Walter’s fate.

Then followed all sorts of things about Korahs, Dathans and Abirams, whereupon the whole family broke out in a wail. For it was so pathetic.

Walter comforted himself with thoughts of Glorioso, and, whenever that “something else” of Juffrouw Laps was spoken of, he just dreamed of his marriage with beautiful Amalia, whose train was carried by six pages. I fancy Juffrouw Laps would have made a pretty face if she had learned of this interpretation of her mysterious climax.

All efforts to compel our hero to tell how he had spent that money were in vain. After all known means had been applied, the attempt to force a confession had to be abandoned. Water and bread, water without bread, bread without water, no water and no bread, the preacher, Stoffel, Habakkuk, Juffrouw Laps, tears, the rod—all in vain. Walter was not theboy to betray Glorioso. This was what he had found so shabby of Scelerajoso, who had to pay the penalty, as we have seen.

As soon as he got the privilege of walking again with the Hallemans, who were so eminently respectable, he hurried away to the old bridge, near Ash Gate, to continue his thrilling book. He read up to that fatal moment when he had to tell his hero good-bye, and on the last page saw Glorioso, as a major-general, peacefully expire in the arms of the virtuous Alvira.

When Walter had returned the book to Hartenstraat his eye was attracted by some almond-cakes at the confectioner’s on the corner. He did with Glorioso just as the Athenians did with Kodrus: No one was worthy to be the successor of such a hero, and within a few days the residue of the New Testament had been converted into stomach-destroying pastry.

I ought to add that a part of the “balance” left after that Italian excursion—perhaps the part contributed by the Psalms—was invested in a triple-toned, ear-splitting, soul-searing harmonica, which was finally confiscated by Master Pennewip as being a disturbing element in the schoolroom.

Chapter VI don’t feel called upon to pass judgment on the strife between Leentje and Pennewip regarding the latter’s partiality towards Keesje, the butcher’s son. But that fiery feeling for right and justice which has harrassed me from my earliest youth—ah, for years have I waited in vain for justice—and the foolish passion for hunting after mitigating circumstances, even when the misdeed has been proved—all this compels me to say that Pennewip’s lot might be considered a mitigating circumstance for a man convicted of the eight deadly sins.I have found that many great men began their careers as feeders of hogs (see biographical encyclopedias); and it seems to me that this occupation develops those qualities necessary in ruling or advancing mankind.If the theologists should happen to criticise this story, and perhaps accuse me of far-reaching ignorance, because I enumerate one cardinal sin more than they knew of, or of the crime of classifying man as a sort of hog, I reply that, still another new canonical sin could be discovered that they have never studied. And that ought to be as pleasing to them as influenza is to the apothecary.New problems, gentlemen, new problems!And as for our relationship with pigs, just considerthe relation of coal to diamond, and I think everyone will be satisfied—even the theologists.What a magnificent prospect anyone has who spends his tender youth with those grunting coal-diamonds of the animal world! But I have often wondered that in the “Lives of Famous Men” we so seldom read of a school-teacher, for in the school all the ingredients of greatness are abounding.The reverse is more often true. Every day we see banished princes teaching lazy boys. Dionysius and Louis Philippe are not the only ones. I myself once tried to teach an American French. It was no go.If it should ever become customary again to elect kings, I hope the people will elect such persons as have studied men, just as one studies Geography on globes or maps. All virtues, propensities, passions, mistakes, misdeeds, knowledge of which is so indispensable in human society, can be studied much better in the schoolroom. The field is restricted, and can be taken in more readily. The famous statecraft of many a great man, if the truth were known, had its origin in that old tripping trick, which is everything to the three-foot Machiavellis.The task of a schoolmaster is not an easy one. I have never understood why he is not better paid, or, since this must be so, why there are still men who prefer to teach, when on the same pay they might be corporals in the army, and teach the use of firearms, which offers fewer headaches and more fresh air.I would even rather be a preacher; for he does work with people who are interested and come to hear himof their own free will. The teacher has to fight continually with indifference, and with the extremely dangerous rivalry of tops, marbles, and paper-dolls—not to speak of candy, scarlatina and weak mothers.Pennewip was a man of the old school. At least he would seem so to us if we could see him in his gray school jacket and short trousers with buckles, and his brown wig, which he was continually pushing into place. At the first of the week this was always curly, when it was not raining—rain isn’t good for curls; and on Sundays “the man with the curling irons” came.Antiquated? But perhaps this is only imagination. Who knows? perhaps in his day he was quite modern. How soon people will say the same of us! At all events, the man called himself “Master” and his school was a school and not an “Institute.” It is no advance to call things by other than their right names. In his school boys and girls sat together indiscriminately, according to the naïve custom of those days. They learned, or might learn, Reading, Writing, Arithmetic, National History, Psalmody, Sewing, Knitting, and Religion. These were the order of the day, but if anyone distinguished himself by a show of talent, diligence or good behavior, that one received special instruction in versification, an art in which Pennewip took great pleasure.Thus he taught the boys till they were sufficiently advanced to be confirmed. With the help of his wife he gave the girls a “finishing course.” They were graduated with a paternoster done in red on a blackbackground, or perhaps a pierced heart between two flower-pots. Then they were through and ready to become the grandmothers of their own generation.There was no natural science then. Even to-day there is room for improvement along this line. It is said that some advance has been made recently. It is more useful for a child to know how corn grows than to be able to call the name of it in a foreign language. I don’t say that either is incompatible with the other.The public schools were most deficient at the time when Walter and Keesje were slowly crawling around the arena of honor; but I doubt if one could say much more of the “institutes” of to-day. I would advise everyone to visit such a school as he attended when a boy; and I am convinced that after this test many a father who has the welfare of his children at heart will prefer to keep them at home. One comes to the conclusion, that after all in the school of clever Master Miller, who was so clever that he got himself addressed asM’sieuMillaire, precious little was to be learned.Failing to make this test we continue to believe in the infallibility of M’sieu of Millaire. We always consider that one a great man whom we have known in childhood and haven’t seen since.When I remarked a moment ago that school-teachers are paid so niggardly, I didn’t mean that their remuneration was insufficient, considering the quality and quantity of the goods delivered—knowledge, scholarship, education. I only had in mind the bitterness of their lot, and the poor indemnity given to the man who spends his life in a wasp’s nest.In addition to versifying, Pennewip had still another hobby, which gave him more claim to a throne than did anything else. He was possessed with the mania for classifying, a passion known to few, but still of not infrequent occurrence. I have never quite understood the disease; and I gave up my search for the “first cause” as soon as I saw how difficult it is to get around with a hobby-horse taken from somebody else’s stable. So I am going to give only a short sketch of Pennewip’s harmless animal.Everything that he saw, perceived, experienced he divided into families, classes, genera, species and sub-species, and made of the human race a sort of botanical garden, in which he was theLinne. He regarded that as the only possible way to grasp the final purpose of creation and clear up all obscure things, both in and out of school. He even went so far as to say that Walter’s New Testament would have turned up again if Juffrouw Pieterse had only been able to tell to what class the man belonged who had bound the volume in black leather. But that was something she didn’t know.As for myself, I shouldn’t have said a word about Pennewip’s mania for classifying everything, if I hadn’t thought it might help me to give the reader a better picture of our hero and his surroundings. I should have preferred to leave the said Pennewip in undisturbed intercourse with the muses; but we shall have occasion later to refer to his poetic art, when we shall quote some poems by his pupils.After the usual general division into “animate” and “inanimate”—the good man gave the humanrace only one soul—followed a system that looked like a pyramid. On the top was God with the angels and spirits and other accessories, while the oysters and polyps and mussels were crawling about down near the base, or lying still—just as they pleased. Half way up stood kings, members of school-boards, mayors, legislators, theologians and D.D.’s. Next under these were professors and merchants who do not work themselves. Then came doctors of things profane,i. e., those driving double rigs, also lawyers and untitled preachers, the Colonel of the City Militia, the Rector of the Latin School. Philosophers (only those who have developed a system), doctors with one horse, doctors without any horse and poets were further down. Rather low down, and not far from the mussels, was the seventh sub-division of the third class of the “citizen population.” Our hero would come under this sub-section.Citizen Population, Class III., 7th Sub-Division.People Living in Rented Flats.a.Entrance for tenants only. Three-window front. Two stories, with back-rooms. The boys sleep alone, dress, however, with the girls. Fresh straw in case a baby is born. Learning French, poems at Christmas. The girls are sometimes called Lena or Maria, but seldom Louise. Darning. The boys work in offices. One girl kept, sewing-girl, and “person for the rough work.” Washing at home. Read sermons by Palm.Pickledpork on Sundays, with table-cloth, liquor after coffee. Religion. Respectability.b 1.Still three windows. One story. Neighbors live above who ring twice (Videb. 2). Leentje, Mietje; Louise heard seldom. House-door opened with a cord, which is sleek from long use. Sleep in one room. Straw-heaps in cases of confinement. One maid-servant for everything. Sundays cheese, no liquor, but religion and respectability as above.b 2.Neighbors who ring twice. About as above. No maid, only a “person for the rough work.” Seamstress. White table-cloth. Cheese from time to time, only occasionally. Religion as above.c.One story higher. Two-window front. Small projecting back-room. The entire family sleeps in two beds. No trace of straw. The boys are called Louw, Piet, or Gerrit, and become watchmakers or type-setters. A few become sailors. Continual wrangle with the neighbors about the waste-water. Religion as above. Associate with “respectable folk.” Read “Harlemmer” with III. 7, b. 2. No maid, or person for rough work, but a seamstress on seven stivers and a piece of bread and butter.That brings us to Juffrouw Pieterse.The reader will now have a very good idea of Walter’s environment, and will readily understand why I said he had a “city complexion.” That was when we saw him in the Hartenstraat, on the road to fame, or on the road to that nameless “other thing” of Juffrouw Laps. At all events he was on his way to things that will occupy our attention for some time yet.

I don’t feel called upon to pass judgment on the strife between Leentje and Pennewip regarding the latter’s partiality towards Keesje, the butcher’s son. But that fiery feeling for right and justice which has harrassed me from my earliest youth—ah, for years have I waited in vain for justice—and the foolish passion for hunting after mitigating circumstances, even when the misdeed has been proved—all this compels me to say that Pennewip’s lot might be considered a mitigating circumstance for a man convicted of the eight deadly sins.

I have found that many great men began their careers as feeders of hogs (see biographical encyclopedias); and it seems to me that this occupation develops those qualities necessary in ruling or advancing mankind.

If the theologists should happen to criticise this story, and perhaps accuse me of far-reaching ignorance, because I enumerate one cardinal sin more than they knew of, or of the crime of classifying man as a sort of hog, I reply that, still another new canonical sin could be discovered that they have never studied. And that ought to be as pleasing to them as influenza is to the apothecary.

New problems, gentlemen, new problems!

And as for our relationship with pigs, just considerthe relation of coal to diamond, and I think everyone will be satisfied—even the theologists.

What a magnificent prospect anyone has who spends his tender youth with those grunting coal-diamonds of the animal world! But I have often wondered that in the “Lives of Famous Men” we so seldom read of a school-teacher, for in the school all the ingredients of greatness are abounding.

The reverse is more often true. Every day we see banished princes teaching lazy boys. Dionysius and Louis Philippe are not the only ones. I myself once tried to teach an American French. It was no go.

If it should ever become customary again to elect kings, I hope the people will elect such persons as have studied men, just as one studies Geography on globes or maps. All virtues, propensities, passions, mistakes, misdeeds, knowledge of which is so indispensable in human society, can be studied much better in the schoolroom. The field is restricted, and can be taken in more readily. The famous statecraft of many a great man, if the truth were known, had its origin in that old tripping trick, which is everything to the three-foot Machiavellis.

The task of a schoolmaster is not an easy one. I have never understood why he is not better paid, or, since this must be so, why there are still men who prefer to teach, when on the same pay they might be corporals in the army, and teach the use of firearms, which offers fewer headaches and more fresh air.

I would even rather be a preacher; for he does work with people who are interested and come to hear himof their own free will. The teacher has to fight continually with indifference, and with the extremely dangerous rivalry of tops, marbles, and paper-dolls—not to speak of candy, scarlatina and weak mothers.

Pennewip was a man of the old school. At least he would seem so to us if we could see him in his gray school jacket and short trousers with buckles, and his brown wig, which he was continually pushing into place. At the first of the week this was always curly, when it was not raining—rain isn’t good for curls; and on Sundays “the man with the curling irons” came.

Antiquated? But perhaps this is only imagination. Who knows? perhaps in his day he was quite modern. How soon people will say the same of us! At all events, the man called himself “Master” and his school was a school and not an “Institute.” It is no advance to call things by other than their right names. In his school boys and girls sat together indiscriminately, according to the naïve custom of those days. They learned, or might learn, Reading, Writing, Arithmetic, National History, Psalmody, Sewing, Knitting, and Religion. These were the order of the day, but if anyone distinguished himself by a show of talent, diligence or good behavior, that one received special instruction in versification, an art in which Pennewip took great pleasure.

Thus he taught the boys till they were sufficiently advanced to be confirmed. With the help of his wife he gave the girls a “finishing course.” They were graduated with a paternoster done in red on a blackbackground, or perhaps a pierced heart between two flower-pots. Then they were through and ready to become the grandmothers of their own generation.

There was no natural science then. Even to-day there is room for improvement along this line. It is said that some advance has been made recently. It is more useful for a child to know how corn grows than to be able to call the name of it in a foreign language. I don’t say that either is incompatible with the other.

The public schools were most deficient at the time when Walter and Keesje were slowly crawling around the arena of honor; but I doubt if one could say much more of the “institutes” of to-day. I would advise everyone to visit such a school as he attended when a boy; and I am convinced that after this test many a father who has the welfare of his children at heart will prefer to keep them at home. One comes to the conclusion, that after all in the school of clever Master Miller, who was so clever that he got himself addressed asM’sieuMillaire, precious little was to be learned.

Failing to make this test we continue to believe in the infallibility of M’sieu of Millaire. We always consider that one a great man whom we have known in childhood and haven’t seen since.

When I remarked a moment ago that school-teachers are paid so niggardly, I didn’t mean that their remuneration was insufficient, considering the quality and quantity of the goods delivered—knowledge, scholarship, education. I only had in mind the bitterness of their lot, and the poor indemnity given to the man who spends his life in a wasp’s nest.

In addition to versifying, Pennewip had still another hobby, which gave him more claim to a throne than did anything else. He was possessed with the mania for classifying, a passion known to few, but still of not infrequent occurrence. I have never quite understood the disease; and I gave up my search for the “first cause” as soon as I saw how difficult it is to get around with a hobby-horse taken from somebody else’s stable. So I am going to give only a short sketch of Pennewip’s harmless animal.

Everything that he saw, perceived, experienced he divided into families, classes, genera, species and sub-species, and made of the human race a sort of botanical garden, in which he was theLinne. He regarded that as the only possible way to grasp the final purpose of creation and clear up all obscure things, both in and out of school. He even went so far as to say that Walter’s New Testament would have turned up again if Juffrouw Pieterse had only been able to tell to what class the man belonged who had bound the volume in black leather. But that was something she didn’t know.

As for myself, I shouldn’t have said a word about Pennewip’s mania for classifying everything, if I hadn’t thought it might help me to give the reader a better picture of our hero and his surroundings. I should have preferred to leave the said Pennewip in undisturbed intercourse with the muses; but we shall have occasion later to refer to his poetic art, when we shall quote some poems by his pupils.

After the usual general division into “animate” and “inanimate”—the good man gave the humanrace only one soul—followed a system that looked like a pyramid. On the top was God with the angels and spirits and other accessories, while the oysters and polyps and mussels were crawling about down near the base, or lying still—just as they pleased. Half way up stood kings, members of school-boards, mayors, legislators, theologians and D.D.’s. Next under these were professors and merchants who do not work themselves. Then came doctors of things profane,i. e., those driving double rigs, also lawyers and untitled preachers, the Colonel of the City Militia, the Rector of the Latin School. Philosophers (only those who have developed a system), doctors with one horse, doctors without any horse and poets were further down. Rather low down, and not far from the mussels, was the seventh sub-division of the third class of the “citizen population.” Our hero would come under this sub-section.

Citizen Population, Class III., 7th Sub-Division.People Living in Rented Flats.a.Entrance for tenants only. Three-window front. Two stories, with back-rooms. The boys sleep alone, dress, however, with the girls. Fresh straw in case a baby is born. Learning French, poems at Christmas. The girls are sometimes called Lena or Maria, but seldom Louise. Darning. The boys work in offices. One girl kept, sewing-girl, and “person for the rough work.” Washing at home. Read sermons by Palm.Pickledpork on Sundays, with table-cloth, liquor after coffee. Religion. Respectability.b 1.Still three windows. One story. Neighbors live above who ring twice (Videb. 2). Leentje, Mietje; Louise heard seldom. House-door opened with a cord, which is sleek from long use. Sleep in one room. Straw-heaps in cases of confinement. One maid-servant for everything. Sundays cheese, no liquor, but religion and respectability as above.b 2.Neighbors who ring twice. About as above. No maid, only a “person for the rough work.” Seamstress. White table-cloth. Cheese from time to time, only occasionally. Religion as above.c.One story higher. Two-window front. Small projecting back-room. The entire family sleeps in two beds. No trace of straw. The boys are called Louw, Piet, or Gerrit, and become watchmakers or type-setters. A few become sailors. Continual wrangle with the neighbors about the waste-water. Religion as above. Associate with “respectable folk.” Read “Harlemmer” with III. 7, b. 2. No maid, or person for rough work, but a seamstress on seven stivers and a piece of bread and butter.

Citizen Population, Class III., 7th Sub-Division.

People Living in Rented Flats.

a.Entrance for tenants only. Three-window front. Two stories, with back-rooms. The boys sleep alone, dress, however, with the girls. Fresh straw in case a baby is born. Learning French, poems at Christmas. The girls are sometimes called Lena or Maria, but seldom Louise. Darning. The boys work in offices. One girl kept, sewing-girl, and “person for the rough work.” Washing at home. Read sermons by Palm.Pickledpork on Sundays, with table-cloth, liquor after coffee. Religion. Respectability.

b 1.Still three windows. One story. Neighbors live above who ring twice (Videb. 2). Leentje, Mietje; Louise heard seldom. House-door opened with a cord, which is sleek from long use. Sleep in one room. Straw-heaps in cases of confinement. One maid-servant for everything. Sundays cheese, no liquor, but religion and respectability as above.

b 2.Neighbors who ring twice. About as above. No maid, only a “person for the rough work.” Seamstress. White table-cloth. Cheese from time to time, only occasionally. Religion as above.

c.One story higher. Two-window front. Small projecting back-room. The entire family sleeps in two beds. No trace of straw. The boys are called Louw, Piet, or Gerrit, and become watchmakers or type-setters. A few become sailors. Continual wrangle with the neighbors about the waste-water. Religion as above. Associate with “respectable folk.” Read “Harlemmer” with III. 7, b. 2. No maid, or person for rough work, but a seamstress on seven stivers and a piece of bread and butter.

That brings us to Juffrouw Pieterse.

The reader will now have a very good idea of Walter’s environment, and will readily understand why I said he had a “city complexion.” That was when we saw him in the Hartenstraat, on the road to fame, or on the road to that nameless “other thing” of Juffrouw Laps. At all events he was on his way to things that will occupy our attention for some time yet.

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