“Now, Stoffel,” said the hostess sweetly, “recite something for us.” She wanted to show that her children could do something else besides pinch and turn things over.
“I don’t know anything,” said Stoffel, but without a trace of Socratic arrogance.
“Just say for us what you said the other day. Come, Stoffel. That’s the way he always is, Juffrouw Mabbel. One has to pull him up on his feet before he will do anything. But then he goes all right. Forward, Stoffel! He’s tired now. Teaching in such a school is hard work. Yes, Juffrouw, he’s as smart as he can be. Would you believe it? All words are either masculine or feminine. Aren’t they, Stoffel?”
“No, mother.”
“No? But—and the other day you said—it’s only to get him started, you know, Juffrouw Zipperman, it takes a little time, because he’s worn out with his school work—but you said that all words——”
“No, mother. Masculine, feminine or neuter, I said.”
“Yes, and still more,” said Juffrouw Pieterse. “You will be astonished when you hear him. What do you suppose you are, Juffrouw Krummel?”
“I? What I am?”
“Yes, yes, what you are—what you really are.”
“I am Juffrouw Krummel,” she said, but doubtfully; for she read in the triumphant look of Juffrouw Pieterse and the tightly closed lips of Stoffel that she might easily be something entirely different from Juffrouw Krummel.