the
boy's thoughts as could only a heart that must ever be boyish, beckoned
Willem to him, as Kathrien and Marta departed to their interrupted work
in the dining-room and the rest looked half ashamed at their momentary
excitement over so garish and trivial a thing.

"Willem!" called Grimm.

"_Ja_, Mynheer," answered the boy, coming slowly, his face still alight
with his tremendous adventure of a moment ago.

"Willem," repeated Grimm, "you wouldn't care to go to that circus, would
you? Wouldn't it be pretty stupid?"

"_Stupid!_" gasped the boy. "Oh!"

"Well," said Peter, "suppose you go, then?"

"Go? Really, Mynheer Grimm?"

"Go get the seats," ordered Grimm. "Here's the money. Get two _front_
seats. _Two._ We'll both go. We'll make a night of it, you and I. We'll
stay out till--till ten o'clock!"

The vision of this bliss was too much for Willem's English.

"_Ekar, ekar na hat circus!_" he babbled dazedly.

Then he rushed up impulsively to Peter and seized the big, kindly hand
in both his own.

"Oh, Mynheer _Grimm_!" he squealed in ecstasy. "There ain't any one else
like you in the world. And--and--when the other fellows laugh at your
funny hat, _I_ don't."

"What?" asked Grimm, perplexed. "Is my hat funny?"

The boy was vibrant with laughter, drunk with anticipation. But,
momentarily straightening his glowing face with a cast of semi-gravity,
he said:

"And--and--Mynheer Grimm--it's too bad you've got to die!"

CHAPTER VI

BREAKING THE NEWS

There was an instant of stark, palsied silence. The rector, his wife,
and McPherson looked at the all-unconscious boy with dumb horror. A
horror that for the time crowded out indignation. Frederik, ignorant as
he was of any cause for emotion, was struck by the tense bearing of the
trio and looked from one to the other with the air of the only man in
the room who does not catch a joke's point.

Peter Grimm alone was not affected by Willem's words. He was used to the
child's oddities, his alternating high spirits, and dashes of sadness;
his old-fashioned phrases and his queer lapses. Grimm broke the ominous
silence with an amused chuckle.

"Most people die, sooner or later, Willem," he answered, stroking the
boy's shock of soft yellow hair. "I'll live to see you in the business
though. And we'll go to dozens of circuses together, too. Don't worry
your little head over your Oom Peter's dying. I----"

He paused. The electrified atmosphere generated by