“I’m going away to-morrow morning by the first train,” said Gerrit.
“Then you’ll want a vigilante?”
“Go to the ... woodpile!” cried Gerrit, “with all your foreign talk.”
“Good-night, gentlemen!” said Karel.
The doors were shut, and the gentlemen were left alone. Now began a conversation between the two—carried on in genuine rustic growls, and yet as softly as if they were afraid of waking “Mother my wife.” A few minutes later Gijs retired, with a new blue wadded night-cap, and a “good-night, dad,” to No. 72.
Gerrit had at once blown out the wax candles in No. 71. “That’s just sinful waste,” he said; and Gijs, on entering No. 72, followed his father’s example.
They were not long in undressing by moonlight. Gijs put on the night-cap, and stepped into the soft bed. What a thing that was!—soft as pap!... Never knew such a thing before.... He lay listening.... Every moment he heard something ... some one walking about ... groping among the furniture ... at last speaking. At last, he could stand it no longer—he sat up and stared uneasily about. He thought he could plainly ... hear ... something ... at ... the ... door. Seemed as if ... you ... could ... see ... the ... handle ... turning.... The perspiration broke out all over him ... still he saw it ... plainly ... and, when the door was really opened, he uttered a yell, but slowly recovered himself on seeing that it was his father.
“Can’t rest on that thing,” said Gerrit, as he came in, meaning the bed, which he found much too soft. “No, Gijs, I’ll just come and lie here on the boards.”
“I’ll do that too,” said Gijs, stepping out of bed, and then he lay down on the floor beside his father—each with a pea-jacket rolled up for a pillow—“good-night! pleasant dreams.”
Whether the dreams were, in point of fact, pleasant may be doubted, for they formed a first-class raree-show, composed of bare legs and wafer-cakes, guns and horses, omnibuses, and the climbing of towers, in wild confusion. Certain it is, however, that the Meeuwsens, father and son, when they awoke, stared at one another as if they had been bewitched, and had to think a long time before they could remember where on earth they were.