“Sir, why do you call mamma ‘my good woman?’ ”
“What then, my boy?” I said, “how must I address her?”
“Well—as others do.——You should say ‘my good woman’ to the woman below, who sells saucers.”
Now I am a coffee-broker—Last and Co., No. 37 Laurier Canal: we are thirteen of us at the office, and, including Stern, who receives no salary, there are fourteen. Well, my wife is not Madam, and ought I to call this creature Madam? That is impossible; every one must remain in [[49]]his own station——besides, the bailiffs took away everything. I thought “my good woman” quite right, and made no alteration.
I asked why Shawlman had not called on me to ask for his parcel? She seemed to know it, and said that they had been to Brussels, where he had worked for the “Indépendance,” but that he could not remain there, because his articles caused the Journal to be so often refused at the French frontiers; that a few days ago they had returned to Amsterdam, where Shawlman expected a situation.
“That was certainly at Gaafzuiger’s?” I asked.
“Yes, it was; but that would not do,” she said.
I knew more about it than she. He had let the Aglaja fall, and was moreover idle, conceited, and poorly——therefore they had turned him out——“And,” she went on, “that he would certainly come to me one of these days, and was, perhaps, just now going to my house to ask for a reply to his request.”
I said that Shawlman might come, but that he was not to knock, that being so troublesome for the servant; if he waited for some time, I said, the door would certainly be opened, when somebody went out. And then I went away, and took my sweetmeats along with me; for, to speak the truth, I did not like the place. I did not feel comfortable there. A broker is certainly not a common porter, and I maintain that I am a very respectable man; I had on my coat with furs, and still she sat as much at [[50]]her ease, and spoke as calmly with her children, as if she were alone. Moreover, she seemed to have been crying, and I cannot bear discontented persons: it was cold and unsociable there, because everything had been taken away, and I like sociability. While going home I resolved to give Bastianus another trial, not liking to give anybody his dismissal.
Now it is Stern’s first week. Of course much is in it which I do not like; but I must obey stipulation No. 2, and the Rosemeyers are of that opinion; but I think that they flatter Stern, because he has an uncle at Hamburg in the sugar trade.