“And what have you been doing all this time?”
“Oh, a lot! Too much to tell you all at once. And you?”
“I? Nothing, nothing. You know I’m married?”
“Yes, I know,” said Brauws. “But what do you do? You’re in a government-office, I suppose?”
“No, Lord no, old fellow! Nothing, I just do nothing. I cycle.”
They both laughed. Brauws looked at his old college-friend, almost paternally, with a quiet smile.
“The beggar hasn’t changed an atom,” he said. “Yes, now that I look at you again, I see something here and there. But you’ve remained Welckje, for all that....”
“But not Mad Hans,” sighed Van der Welcke.
“Vreeswijck has become a great swell,” said Brauws. “And the others?”
“Greater swells still.”