“Can’t rest on _that_ thing,” said Gerrit, as he came in, meaning the bed, which he found much too soft. “No, Gijs, I’ll just come and lie here on the boards.”
“I’ll do that too,” said Gijs, stepping out of bed, and then he lay down on the floor beside his father—each with a pea-jacket rolled up for a pillow—“good-night! pleasant dreams.”
Whether the dreams were, in point of fact, pleasant may be doubted, for they formed a first-class raree-show, composed of bare legs and wafer-cakes, guns and horses, omnibuses, and the climbing of towers, in wild confusion. Certain it is, however, that the Meeuwsens, father and son, when they awoke, stared at one another as if they had been bewitched, and had to think a long time before they could remember where on earth they were.
Well, how did they get home again from the fair?—Gerrit to his Griet, and Gijs to his Mijn.
Very well indeed. Physically they were in sad case, but spiritually all right—which does not always happen on like occasions. The bill which Karel handed to Gerrit before his departure was alike illegible to him and to Gijs. Perhaps no one but the hotel-proprietor and the head-waiter could ever have deciphered it—only the total was clear: 16f. 80—accurately reckoned. Gerrit thought, but said nothing; paid; started, when he was told that a tip was expected of him, over and above the bill, but paid it; and left the Verdoel by the first omnibus, and Amsterdam by the first train.
“That’s over!” said Gerrit, sitting safe and sound once more beside his Griet in the kitchen. “Once is well enough—but never again! And I had everything first-class!”
This was true enough: for on the return journey he had managed to get into the right compartment of the train—though, to say the truth, he found it much less comfortable than the other.
And Gijs? Gijs was as blythe as a foal in the meadow, when he found himself at home again. When he told Mijn about the circus, and the young ladies in gilt caps who had sold him wafers, and tried to flirt with him, she turned as red as fire, and said it was scandalous; but the cup and saucer, which, contrary to all expectation, had reached home uninjured, were duly admired by her. And when Gerrit, one fine evening, had some of the neighbours in to help in the pig-killing, and entertained them in the kitchen when work was over, the monster cake was tasted, and Gerrit profited by the opportunity to relate all his adventures. Then said Brother-in-Law Kresel, that such a thing hadn’t happened within the memory of man!—and Baas Janssen, that morality was getting into a frightful state!—and the old Teunis farmer concluded, “What does a man want on the ice in his clogs?”