“Don’t you want to do me a favor?” said the good man. “Then walk on my right side. I’m deaf here”—pointing to his left ear.
“I will tell you how it happened. When I was a little boy—are you a good climber?”
“No, M’neer!”
“Well, I am! In the whole of Vucht there wasn’t a boy who could climb as well as I could. Do you know what I did once? I climbed up and slipped a flower-pot from a third-story window. And—my priest wasn’t in a good humor at all! He didn’t want to accept me till I had returned that flower-pot; and then I had to go and beg the old woman’s pardon. And she herself went to the priest to intercede for me. Then he accepted me. But I got twenty ‘confiteors’—oh, he was severe!
“But I was going to tell you why I’m deaf in the left ear.
“In one of the seminaries was a student—he’s a canonicus in the Rhine country, and will get to be a cardinal, perhaps pope, for—he was very sly! I will tell you, his name was—Rake; but, you understand, his name was really something else. This Rake was a mean rascal; but he was never punished, because he was careful. See if he doesn’t get to be a cardinal, or pope! You ought to hear him quote from the Vulgate. He could rattle away for three hours and never made a mistake.” * * *
“Are you perfectly crazy, boy, or what is the matter with you? Walking with a priest! What in the name of the Lord are you thinking about? Go in the house—quick! Jesu, what troubles I have with that child!”
With these words Juffrouw Pieterse broke off Walter’s acquaintance with Father Jansen for this time.
The way that the father and Walter had taken led them directly by Walter’s home. Juffrouw Pieterse, who was haggling with a Jew over the price of a basket of potatoes, narrowly escaped a stroke of apoplexy when she saw them together.
“With a priest!—Stoffel! Come down quick—that boy is walking with a priest!”