Walter Pieterse. Multatuli

      Then came a street-sweeper with his cart, who seemed to rattle that hateful word after him.

      Our little sufferer remembered that the Halleman boys had once told him what a fortune could be made by peddling peppermint drops. For twenty-four stivers one could buy a big sack full. By selling so and so many for a doit, the profit would be enormous. If one only had the capital to begin! The Hallemans had calculated everything very exactly; for they were not only very respectable, but also very cunning. Cunningness and respectability usually go hand in hand. They had said, all that was needed was the capital. They would attend to laying in the stock, and would assume all responsibility for the sale of the same. If Walter would chip in just a florin, they could raise the rest and all would go well.

      Parasite. … Parasite. …

      Walter slipped a florin from his mother's box of savings and brought it to the Halleman boys, who were so remarkably respectable.

      "Where did you get it?" asked Gustave, but careful not to give Walter time to answer, or to fall into an embarrassing silence.

      "Where did you get it?"—without any interrogation point—"fine! Franz and I will each add one like it. That'll make twenty-four, and then we'll buy the peppermints. There's a factory on the Rosengracht—such a sack for four shillings. Franz and I will do everything. We'll have more opportunity at school, you understand. Christian Kloskamp has already ordered twelve; he'll pay after the holidays. We'll take all the trouble; you needn't do anything, Walter—and then an equal divide. You can depend upon it."

      Walter went home and dreamed of unheard-of wealth. He would put a dollar in his mother's savings-bank, and buy for Cecilia a lead pencil from the man who had picked holes in the wood-work of his wagon with them. So strong were they! That would be something entirely different from those slate pencils; and if the tall Cecilia still wouldn't have him, then—but Walter did not care to think further. There are abysses along the path of fancy that we do not dare to sound. We see them instinctively, close the eyes and—I only know that on that evening Walter fell asleep feeling good, expecting soon to have a good conscience over his little theft and hoping that Cecilia would give him a happy heart.

      Alas, alas! Little Walter had made his calculations without taking into consideration the slyness and respectability of the Hallemans. They lay in wait for him the next day as he came from school. Walter, who had painted to himself how they would be panting under the weight of the great sack; Walter, who was so anxious to know if Christian Kloskamp had taken what he had ordered; Walter, who was burning with curiosity as to the success of the venture—oh, he was bitterly disappointed. Gustave Halleman not only carried no sack of peppermints. What's more, he had a very grave face. And little Franz looked like virtue itself.

      "Well, how is everything?" Walter asked, but without saying a word. He was too curious not to ask, and too fearful to express the question otherwise than by opening his mouth and poking out his face.

      "Don't you know, Walter, we've been thinking about the matter; and there's a lot to be said against the plan."

      Poor Walter! In that moment both his heart and his conscience suffered shipwreck. Away with your dreams of ethical vindication, away with the gaping money-boxes of mothers—away, lead pencil that was to bore a hole in the hard heart of the tall Cecilia—gone, gone, gone, everything lost.

      "You see, Walter, the mint-drops might melt."

      "Y-e-s," sobbed Walter.

      "And Christian Kloskamp, who ordered twelve—don't you know——"

      "Y-e-s."

      I wonder if Christian was likely to melt too.

      "He is leaving school, and will certainly not return after the holidays."

      "H-e-e i-i-s?"

      "Yes, and for that reason, and also because there are not anything like so many to the pound as we had thought. Mint-drops are heavy. We've calculated everything, Franz and I."

      "Yes," added little Franz, with the seriousness of one giving important advice in a time of great danger, "the things are very heavy at present. Feel this one; but you must give it back to me."

      Walter weighed the mint-drop on his finger and returned it conscientiously.

      He found it heavy. Ah, in this moment he was so depressed that he would have found everything heavy.

      Franz stuck the piece of candy into his mouth, and sucking at it continued:

      "Yes, really, very heavy. These are the English drops, you know. And then there is something else, too, isn't there, Gustave? The propriety, the respectability! Tell him, Gustave."

      "The respectability," cried Gustave, significantly.

      "We mean the respectability of it," repeated Franz, as if he were explaining something.

      Walter looked first from one to the other, and did not seem to comprehend.

      "You tell him, Gustave."

      "Yes, Walter, Franz will tell you," said Gustave.

      "Walter, our papa is a deacon, and carries a portfolio, and there where we live is a——"

      "Yes," cried Gustave, "there on the Gracht, you know, lives M'neer

       Krulewinkel. He has a villa——"

      "With a portico," added Franz.

      "It's just on account of our standing—don't you see, Walter? And when a visitor comes our mother brings out the wine."

      "Yes, Maderia, Maderia! And our tobacco-box is silver, and——"

      "No, Franz, it isn't silver; but, Walter, it looks just like silver."

      Our poor little sinner understood all of this, but he failed to see what bearing it might have on his own disappointed hopes. He stuttered: "Yes, Gustave—yes, Franz—but the peppermint——"

      "We just wanted to tell you that we are very respectable, don't you see?"

      "Yes, Gustave."

      "And well-behaved."

      "Y-e-e-s, Franz." Poor Walter!

      "And then as you said you never got any pocket-money——"

      "Yes, Walter—and don't you know? Because our papa is so respectable—when winter comes you can see how he looks after the orphans."

      "Yes, and he rings at every door. And—and—we are afraid, that you——"

      "That you——"

      "The florin——"

      "The florin! You understand?"

      "That you didn't get it——"

      "That you didn't get it honestly. That's it," said Franz, sticking another mint-drop into his mouth, perhaps to brace himself up.

      It was out at last. Poor, miserable Walter.

      "And on that account, Walter, we would rather not keep the money, but just divide now—equally, as we all agreed."

      "Yes," cried Gustave, "divide equally. The work—we—you understand?"

      They divided the profits. And the Hallemans were sleek about it. Twenty-four stivers; three into twenty-four goes eight times, therefore——

      Walter received eight stivers.

      "Don't you see," explained Gustave, "we couldn't do it, because our papa is a deacon."

      "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