to the coachman,
who stared at him in indolent disdain.

This, to Janzoon, was equivalent to an invitation to draw nearer. The
coachman was now upon his box, gathering up the reins and grumbling at
his horses.

Janzoon accosted him.

"I say. What's going on at the idiot's cottage? Is your boss in there?"

Coachman nodded mysteriously.

"Whew!" whistled Janzoon, drawing closer. "Old Brinker dead?"

The driver grew big with importance and silent in proportion.

"See here, old pincushion, I'd run home yonder and get you a chunk of
gingerbread if I thought you could open your mouth."

Old pincushion was human--long hours of waiting had made him ravenously
hungry. At Janzoon's hint, his countenance showed signs of a collapse.

"That's right, old fellow," pursued his tempter. "Hurry up! What
news?--old Brinker dead?"

"No, CURED! Got his wits," said the coachman, shooting forth his words,
one at a time, like so many bullets.

Like bullets (figuratively speaking) they hit Janzoon Kolp. He jumped as
if he had been shot.

"Goede Gunst! You don't say so!"

The man pressed his lips together and looked significantly toward Master
Kolp's shabby residence.

Just then Janzoon saw a group of boys in the distance. Hailing them in a
rowdy style, common to boys of his stamp all over the world, weather in
Africa, Japan, Amsterdam, or Paris, he scampered toward them, forgetting
coachman, gingerbread, everything but the wonderful news.

Therefore, by sundown it was well known throughout the neighboring
country that Dr. Boekman, chancing to stop at the cottage, had given the
idiot Brinker a tremendous dose of medicine, as brown as gingerbread.
It had taken six men to hold him while it was poured down. The idiot had
immediately sprung to his feet, in full possession of all his faculties,
knocked over the doctor or thrashed him (there was admitted to be a
slight uncertainty as to which of these penalties was inflicted), then
sat down and addressed him for all the world like a lawyer. After that
he had turned and spoken beautifully to his wife and children. Dame
Brinker had laughed herself into violent hysterics. Hans had said,
"Here I am, Father, your own dear son!" And Gretel had said, "Here I am,
Father, your own dear Gretel!" And the doctor had afterward been seen
leaning back in his carriage looking just as white as a corpse.

A New Alarm

When Dr. Boekman called the next day at the Brinker cottage, he could