"Very well, Gerrit ... but first eat a nice little egg."
He gave a roar of laughter which made the whole room ring again. The children also laughed: they always laughed when Papa laughed like that; and the laughter gave courage to Gerdy, who had looked frightened at first. She crept up on Gerrit's knees, mad on being caressed, clung on to Gerrit, kissed him with tiny little kisses; and Alex and Guy hung, one on his arm, the other on his leg, while his Homeric laughter still rang long and loud.
And his laughter never ceased. He laughed till the servant peeped round the door and disappeared again, perplexed. He laughed till all the children, the nine of them, were laughing, for his laughter had tempted the three little ones—Jan, the tyrant, and his two small vassals—from the stairs, where they were playing. He laughed till Adeline, the dear quiet little mother, also got a painful fit of giggling, which made her choke silently in herself. And he could not stop; his laughter roared out and filled the house: even a street-boy, out of doors, flattened his nose against the window in an attempt to peer in and discover who was laughing like that inside.
And at last Gerrit got up, released himself from the three children, kissed Constance; and, with a red face, tears in his eyes and a mouth still distorted with merriment, he caught her two shoulders in his great hands and said, looking deep into her eyes:
"Don't be angry, Sissy, but I c-couldn't help it, I c-couldn't help it!... You'll be the death of me with laughing, if you go on like that!... And when you put on that kind little voice and or-order me ... to eat a n-nice little egg ... before you consent to go for a walk with me...! ... Oh, dear, oh, dear! I shall never get over it!... Very well ... all right ... just to please you ... but then ... but then you must ... b-boil the n-nice little egg for me ... and put it before me ... put my n-nice little egg before me!..."
Constance was laughing too; the children all kept on laughing, like mad, not really knowing what they were laughing at, now that they were all laughing together; and Adeline, Adeline....
"L-look!" said Gerrit, pointing to his wife. "L-look!"
And, while Constance took the egg out of the boiler, she looked round at Adeline. The little mother was still overcome with her fit of silent giggling; the tears rolled down her cheeks; the children around her were screaming with the fun of it.
"I n-never in all my l-life, Connie," said Gerrit, "saw Line laugh ... as she's laughing at that n-nice little egg of yours...."
And he started afresh. He roared. But she had put his plate in front of him. He now played the clown, took up his spoon, said in a pretty little voice that sounded humorously in his great roaring throat: