An awful silence followed this speech. The Juffrouw below had every reason to be satisfied.
“But, Master Pennewip——”
“I don’t want any ‘but’, Juffrouw Pieterse. I ask you, whether you have had any complaints. I mean, of course, well grounded complaints about my instruction in reading, writing, arithmetic——”
“Well, no, Master Pennewip, I have no complaints; but——”
“So-oo? No complaints? Well, then I will explain to you—where is your son Walter?”
“Walter? Dear me! Hasn’t he come home, Trudie? He went to take a walk with the Halleman boys. They are such respectable children, Master Pennewip, and they live——”
“So! With the Hallemans—who go to the French school! Aha, and that’s it? So—from the Hallemans! And he learns such things from the Hallemans—the Hallemans III, 7, a2, perhaps ‘a’—yes, who knows but that it might be II. It’s no wonder—immorality, viciousness—at the French school! And now, Juffrouw Pieterse, I want to tell you that your son——”
“What did you say?”
Master Pennewip looked about him as if he were drinking in the breathless silence that had fallen over his hearers.
Juffrouw Laps hastened to repay with compound interest that triumphant look of the hostess, while that lady, thoroughly miserable, was making frequent use of the camphor bottle. She was not so much mortified that Juffrouw Laps should hear something else unfavorable about Walter, who had caused them so much trouble, as angry that she should be the witness of an accusation that would give her a new weapon in the zoölogical fray.