"You hound! You hound!" he yelled.
And he tried to fling himself on Jaap again.
The two other boys held him back. And a sudden reasonableness came to soothe Addie's passion: he must not let himself go like that, against that cur of a Jaap. When that young bounder lost his temper, he didn't know what he shouted and raved, "Italian!" and "Not the son of your father!" Addie shrugged his shoulders:
"I've had enough of cycling with you chaps. I can spend my Sundays better than in tormenting cats and quarrelling and fighting."
And he sprang on his bicycle and rode away.
"Italian!" Jaap screamed after him once more, forgetting everything, except his hatred.
Addie looked round; and he saw that Chris and Piet, both furious, were thrashing the very life out of Jaap.
He rode away, mastering his nerves. No, he could never again, to please Mamma, spoil his Sunday holiday with those cads of boys. This was the last time, for good and all! Besides, he felt that they liked him as little as he them. And then, suddenly, his thoughts went back to the strange word, the word of abuse, and to the boy who, once before, had shouted it after him in the street. That time, he had not imagined that it was he whom the boy meant.
Try as he would to keep calm, he was too much excited to go straight home and perhaps meet Papa and Mamma. He therefore rode to the Bezuidenhout, hoping to find Frans van Naghel in: Henri was not at the Hague, was working hard at Leiden.
He found Frans at home, in the two elder boys' sitting-room, smoking with a couple of friends.