Imitating the trick of the cuttle-fish, no doubt unconsciously, Stoffel managed to escape this fatal stare by enveloping himself in a heavy cloud of smoke. Juffrouw Pieterse, however, not being a smoker, was at the mercy of Juffrouw Laps. She stammered humbly: "It's in the book, really it's in the book. Don't be angry, it's in the book."
By this time Juffrouw Laps was getting a little air, so much that there was now no danger of her suffocating. She threw the mutilated remains of the ginger cake on the table and began:
"Juffrouw Pieterse, you are nothing but a low, vile, filthy--you may even be a sucking animal, you and your son too. I want you to understand that I've always been respectable. My father sold grain, and nobody's ever been able to say anything against me! Ask everybody about me--if I've ever run with men-folk, and such things; and if I haven't always paid my debts. He was manager I would have you understand, and we lived over the chapter-house, for he was in the grain business, and you can ask about me there. Thank God, you can ask about me everywhere--do you hear? But never, never, never, has such a thing happened to me. What you put on me! If it wasn't for lowering myself I'd tell you what I think of you--you sucking animal, you and your son and your whole family. My father sold grain, and I'm too respectable for you to----"
"But--it's in the book that way. For God's sake believe me; it's in the book."
"Just hold your lip about your book. Anybody who sells God's holy word on the Ouwebrug needn't talk to me about books."
This accusation was false; for Walter, and not his mother, had sold the Bible; but this was no time for such fine distinctions.
"Stoffel, go get the book and show Juffrouw--my God, what shall I do!"
"Go to the Devil with your book and your sucking animals. You've got nothing to show in your book. I know you--and your lout of a son, and your wenches of daughters, that are growing up like----"
Truitje, Myntje and Pietje, understanding from this that there was something radically wrong with their growth, began to screech too. Other members of the party bawled a word from time to time, as opportunity presented itself. Then came another message from the Juffrouw below. This time she threatened to call in the police. The children, taking advantage of the general excitement to break the ban under which they had been placed, had left the bed and were now listening at the keyhole. Juffrouw Pieterse was calling for the camphor bottle, declaring that she was going to die; Mrs. Stotter was clamoring for her wrap--her "old one"; and Stoffel was playing cuttle-fish as well as he could.