were crazy!" said Juffrouw Pieterse.

"Yes," agreed Stoffel, "but it's because he has nothing to do but
loaf around. If that keeps up, he will never amount to anything."

True, Walter was loafing around; but he was not idle. His activities
brought nothing palpable to light, still he was building up the inner
life in a manner of which Stoffel had no idea.

"Of course!" said the mother. "He must have work. If he were only
willing to be a compositor! or an apprentice in the shoe-business. To
make shoes--that he shall never do."

"This running with priests comes only from idleness, mother. Do I
run with priests? Never. Why not? Because I have to go to my school
every day!"

"Yes, Stoffel, you go to your school every day."

"Besides, there are good priests. There was Luther, for instance. He
was a sort of priest. What did he do?"

"Yes, I know. He reformed the people."

"He made them Lutherans, mother; but that's almost the same thing. One
mustn't be narrow-minded."

"That's what I say, Stoffel, people ought not to be so
narrow-minded. What difference does it make what a person's religion
is, just so he's upright, and not a Roman Catholic!"

When Walter told Father Jansen that he "was in business," and that
he was "going back to business," he spoke better than he himself
knew. He did go back to business.

Through a leather-dealer, who, speaking commercially, was in close
touch with shoes that came from Paris, Walter got a position with a
firm whose "responsibility" was somewhat less apocryphal than that of
Messrs. Motto, Business & Co. He was to begin his new apprenticeship
in the offices of Messrs. Ouwetyd & Kopperlith, a firm of world-wide
reputation.

However, before he was to enter upon his new duties, all sorts of
things were destined to happen, with the tendency to make Walter
appear as a "hero of romance," which he wasn't at all.

CHAPTER XXV

It was Thursday. Stoffel came home with the important news that the
king--I don't know what king--had arrived in the city unexpectedly
and would visit the theatre that evening. Everything and everybody
was in a commotion; for in republican countries much importance is
given to pomp and title.

This time curiosity was more wrought up than usual. Many foreign
princes, including an emperor, were visiting the king; and these
distinguished personages would follow the court to Amsterdam, coming
from The Hague, Utrecht and Haarlem. To put it tamely, it was t