The Turks that he saw now were not revolting in appearance. They were unarmed and did not murder a single baby.
But—Femke was not in the party.
Mrs. Claus was at the wash-tub, while Father Jansen was quietly smoking.
“Is that you, young man? Very nice! That’s the young man who gave Femke the picture, you remember, father?”
The father nodded to him kindly and smoked away, without manifesting any special Godliness.
“Yes, Juffrouw, I wanted to——”
“Very nice of you! Won’t you have a slice of bread and butter? And how is your mother? Is she better now? She was sick, wasn’t she? That’s a good boy, father. Femke said so. Is your mother better again? It was fever, wasn’t it? or apoplexy—or what was it then?”
“Oh, no! Juffrouw.”
“You mustn’t call me Juffrouw. I am only a wash-woman. Everyone must stay in his own class, mustn’t he, father? Well, it’s all the better; I thought she had been sick. It must have been somebody else. One has so much to think of. Do you like cheese?”
The good woman prepared a slice of bread and butter, with cheese. If Trudie could have seen it, she would have fainted. In the “citizen’s class,” such and such a sub-class, according to Pennewip, is found a certain scantiness that does not obtain in the common laboring class. In the matter of eating, laborers, who do not invest their money in Geneva, are not troubled so much by “good form” as people who give their children French names.