“Yes—and our tobacco-box, even if it isn’t pure silver, it’s just like silver.”
My lack of faith in the extreme respectability of the Hallemans is based upon the foregoing story; and I am inclined to think that all this “respectability” of which Walter heard so much at home was only an excuse on his mother’s part to get him out of the way. For there was a lack of room. If she had wanted to use Walter about the house, it is questionable if she had discovered anything especially respectable about those boys.
Many laws and most customs have their origin in a “lack of room”—in the intellect, in one’s character, in the house or flat, in the fields, in the city.
This applies to the preference for the right hand—a result of crowding at the table—to the institution of marriage, and to many things lying between these extremes.
Chapter III
We will not try to explain further this fruitful principle of “limitation of space.” Walter knew the fruit of it, even if he failed to recognize the origin. He was not worried so much by the mere coming home as by the punishment he expected to receive as soon as that New Testament should be missed. He had returned from his little excursion into the country with Glorioso, and now in Amsterdam again the memory of his recent offense—or shall I say the anticipation of what was coming?—lay heavily on his mind.
If we could think away all the results of crime committed, there would be very little left of what we call conscience.
But Walter consoled himself with the thought that it wasn’t a thimble this time. The testament will not be missed at once, he reflected, because Sunday was a long way off, and no one would ask about it during the week.
No, it was not a thimble, or a knitting-needle, or a sugar-bowl, or anything in daily use.