True, Walter was loafing around; but he was not idle. His activities brought nothing palpable to light, still he was building up the inner life in a manner of which Stoffel had no idea.
“Of course!” said the mother. “He must have work. If he were only willing to be a compositor! or an apprentice in the shoe-business. To make shoes—that he shall never do.”
“This running with priests comes only from idleness, mother. Do I run with priests? Never. Why not? Because I have to go to my school every day!”
“Yes, Stoffel, you go to your school every day.”
“Besides, there are good priests. There was Luther, for instance. He was a sort of priest. What did he do?”
“Yes, I know. He reformed the people.”
“He made them Lutherans, mother; but that’s almost the same thing. One mustn’t be narrow-minded.”
“That’s what I say, Stoffel, people ought not to be so narrow-minded. What difference does it make what a person’s religion is, just so he’s upright, and not a Roman Catholic!”
When Walter told Father Jansen that he “was in business,” and that he was “going back to business,” he spoke better than he himself knew. He did go back to business.
Through a leather-dealer, who, speaking commercially, was in close touch with shoes that came from Paris, Walter got a position with a firm whose “responsibility” was somewhat less apocryphal than that of Messrs. Motto, Business & Co. He was to begin his new apprenticeship in the offices of Messrs. Ouwetyd & Kopperlith, a firm of world-wide reputation.