heavily on his majesty's heart. It lay heavily
on Walter's heart, too; but that did not prevent Walter from admiring
this peculiarity of the king. In Africa he would do the same thing.

No, away with Africa!

He threw off his left stocking so violently that it curled around
the leg of the chair like a dying earthworm.

What strange things he had heard of Princess Erika! It was said that
she was to have married a grand-duke, but rejected him.

The middle classes were delighted with this news; though not knowing
but that it might merely have been stubbornness on the part of the
princess.

She was of such a strange nature that she did not know how to behave
herself in her high position.

Walter slipped off his other stocking, finding fault with the princess
for disregarding the usual customs and conventions. Hm! He wondered
if she would like to change places with him, and let him be Prince
Erich--and she----

He wondered if she too wore an ugly nightcap. But--no! Princesses
would wear caps of diamonds.

Princess Erika!

Walter blew out the light--no, he was on the point of blowing it
out. He had selected one of the triangles that Laurens had described
in the bed, when suddenly he became aware of a great tumult in the
Pieterse home.

Yes, somebody had rung violently three or four times and was still
banging at the door. Fire?

Hm! Could it be Princess Erika, he thought, who was coming to change
places with him?

Alas, it was only Juffrouw Laps; and she did not come to exchange.

Well, what did she want then, so late in the evening?

Walter pulled himself together and listened.

The compartment where Walter and Laurens slept was a boxed-up
arrangement over the sitting-room. Two of their sisters shared the
space with them. From considerations of modesty, therefore, the boys
always had to get sleepy a quarter of an hour before the young ladies.

The writer is unable to say how much oxygen four young people need
during eight hours without suffocating; but anyway there wasn't much
room in this little nook.

In another closet-affair there was a similar division, and here, too,
the hour for retiring was determined by similar laws of modesty.

The reader will now understand why a part of the family, the female
part of course, was still in the sitting-room when Walter imagined
that Princess Erika had come to exchange places with him.

Juffrouw Laps, who had rushed up the steps like a crazy woman, burst
int