Well, they would take the house after he had been to the fat man. There was nothing else to be done, though it was risky.
Papa came downstairs with Grandpapa, looking more cheerful: perhaps he had been talking to his father. They sat on a little longer and Papa took out his watch once or twice....
Then the carriage drove up; the old coachman, who had known Papa as a small boy, drove them to the station, where they arrived twenty minutes too soon.
Quietly, without speaking, they walked up and down, waiting for the train....
CHAPTER XII
Next morning, Addie went to play with Uncle Gerrit and Aunt Adeline's children and thought it very jolly to romp about like that with six or seven little boy- and girl-cousins, the oldest a girl of eight years and the youngest a baby ten months old. He amused himself in a fatherly fashion with all these youngsters, inventing new games and causing a certain sensation as a big, new, strong cousin of thirteen. The whole morning, however, he was thinking of the fat man, to whom he had been very early to say that Papa would probably take the house and would like him to call at the Hôtel des Indes at seven o'clock that evening. He had gone on to Uncle Gerrit's from there, and in his heart thought it rather a bore, for, after all, he must prepare Papa and Mamma for the visit of the fat man, who was to bring a draft of the lease with him. So, after eating a sandwich at Aunt Adeline's, he played a little longer with the children, who were not going out, because it was raining, and, soon after, hurried to the Alexanderstraat, to Granny van Lowe's, where he knew that he would find Mamma. Constance was sitting with her mother and telling her about Papa and Mamma van der Welcke and how they had received her. Uncle Paul was there. Addie, a little nervous, asked where Papa was, where Papa had gone that afternoon.
"Papa went to look at a couple of houses in the Nassau-Dillenburgstraat.... Did you enjoy yourself at Uncle Gerrit's?"
"Oh, yes, they are nice little things. What are you doing this afternoon, Mamma?"
"I shall stay on a little with Granny and then we are both going to Uncle and Aunt Ruyvenaer's. Will you come too, Addie?"