“Stoffel, go get the book and show Juffrouw—my God, what shall I do!”
“Go to the Devil with your book and your sucking animals. You’ve got nothing to show in your book. I know you—and your lout of a son, and your wenches of daughters, that are growing up like——”
Truitje, Myntje and Pietje, understanding from this that there was something radically wrong with their growth, began to screech too. Other members of the party bawled a word from time to time, as opportunity presented itself. Then came another message from the Juffrouw below. This time she threatened to call in the police. The children, taking advantage of the general excitement to break the ban under which they had been placed, had left the bed and were now listening at the keyhole. Juffrouw Pieterse was calling for the camphor bottle, declaring that she was going to die; Mrs. Stotter was clamoring for her wrap—her “old one”; and Stoffel was playing cuttle-fish as well as he could.
All had got up and were going to leave. They could “put up with a good deal,” but that was “too much”! Juffrouw Krummel was going to tell her husband; Juffrouw Zipperman was going to let everybody in the insurance business know about it; Mrs. Stotter was going to relate the whole story to the gentleman in Prince Street; and Juffrouw Mabbel—I forget whom she was going to tell it all to. In short, every one of them was going to see to it that the affair was well aired.
Who knows but what these threats would have been carried out, if the good genius of the Pieterses had not at that moment caused someone to ring the door-bell? It was that worthy gentleman whom we left in such a state of pious despair at the close of the last chapter.
Chapter IX
Yes, the door-bell rang. And it rang again: So it was “for us.” Juffrouw Pieterse drew a long breath; and I must say, she did a very proper thing. While admitting that it is foolish to say what one would do if one were somebody else, still, in her place I should have drawn a long breath, too. Firstly, because I imagine she hadn’t done this for a long time; secondly, because I know how, in adverse circumstances, every change and interruption gives one ground for hope; and, finally, because I think Juffrouw Pieterse was human, just like the rest of us.
“Ah, my dears,” she said, “be peaceable. It must be the gentlemen.”
The ladies declared it couldn’t be the gentlemen, because it was too early for them; and this very doubt and uncertainty as to who it might be gave the crisis a favorable turn.