As I was going upstairs to say good-by to my mistress, I ran into her niece in the hall.
"Is it true what they say—that you are leaving?"
"Yes."
"If you had not gone of your own accord, you would have been sent away," she assured me, not very kindly, but with perfect frankness.
And the tipsy mistress said:
"Good-by, Christ be with you! You are a bad boy, an impudent boy; although I have never seen anything bad in you myself, they all say that you are a bad boy!" And suddenly she burst out crying, and said through her tears:
"Ah, if my dead one, my sweet husband, dear soul, had been alive, he would have known how to deal with you; he would have boxed your ears and you would have stayed on. We should not have had to send you away! But nowadays things are different; if all is not exactly as you like, away you go! Och! And where will you be going, boy, and what good will it do you to stroll from place to place?"
[CHAPTER XVI]
I was in a boat with my master, passing along the market-place between shops which were flooded to the height of the second story. I plied the oars, while my master sat in the stern. The paddle wheel, which was useless as a rudder, was deep in the water, and the boat veered about awkwardly, meandering from street to street on the quiet, muddily sleepy waters.