"Here's your cheese and biscuits, Father. You don't like apple-pudding, do you?"
"Oh, I don't want anything!"
"Now, don't be disagreeable. Eat up your cheese."
"I can't eat, when Mamma...."
"She's sorry already; she's all nerves to-day. So don't talk about it any more."
"I? I'm not talking!"
"No, but soeda,[19] now, as Aunt Ruyvenaer says. Will you eat your cheese now? Presently, we'll go for a ride."
He went away.
"Here I sit, just like a naughty child," thought Van der Welcke, "with my little plate of cheese and biscuits. That silly boy!"
And he ate up his bit of cheese and laughed....