Hansie fled from that house, laughing as she went, and patting her parcel of tobacco rapturously.
"Oh, mother, wasn't it funny of him?"
"Yes, but when will you learn to be more careful? Hansie, you are frightfully reckless. You will not listen to reason, I suppose, until we find ourselves across the border and Harmony confiscated!"
The Captain was delighted with the present and willingly added the extra five pounds weight to his cumbrous and heavy burdens.
Somebody, leaving the country for Holland, offered to take documents and letters from the van Warmelos to the President on condition that they could guarantee that he would not be "found out."
This offer came at a most opportune moment, for there was information of the greatest importance to be sent to Mr. W.T. Stead.
For some weeks past Mrs. van Warmelo had been anxious to smuggle through to him copies of the two petitions to the Consuls and a copy of their report on the Concentration Camps. For this the White Envelope was not considered satisfactory enough—the documents were too bulky and the post during those days not to be depended upon.
The information, therefore, was written on tissue paper (the usual method) and packed in a small bottle of Dr. Williams's Pink Pills, to be handed to a relative of Mrs. van Warmelo's in Holland, with instructions that he should read the contents and forward them without delay to Mr. Stead for publication in the Review of Reviews.
The "medicine" was faithfully delivered in Holland, but alas! the recipient, with unheard-of presumption, after having read the documents, decided in his own mind that they were not of sufficient importance to be published in London and quietly kept them to himself!