"Don't you know, Walter, we've been thinking about the matter; and there's a lot to be said against the plan."
Poor Walter! In that moment both his heart and his conscience suffered shipwreck. Away with your dreams of ethical vindication, away with the gaping money-boxes of mothers--away, lead pencil that was to bore a hole in the hard heart of the tall Cecilia--gone, gone, gone, everything lost.
"You see, Walter, the mint-drops might melt."
"And Christian Kloskamp, who ordered twelve--don't you know----"
I wonder if Christian was likely to melt too.
"He is leaving school, and will certainly not return after the holidays."
"Yes, and for that reason, and also because there are not anything like so many to the pound as we had thought. Mint-drops are heavy. We've calculated everything, Franz and I."
"Yes," added little Franz, with the seriousness of one giving important advice in a time of great danger, "the things are very heavy at present. Feel this one; but you must give it back to me."
Walter weighed the mint-drop on his finger and returned it conscientiously.
He found it heavy. Ah, in this moment he was so depressed that he would have found everything heavy.
Franz stuck the piece of candy into his mouth, and sucking at it continued:
"Yes, really, very heavy. These are the English drops, you know. And then there is something else, too, isn't there, Gustave? The propriety, the respectability! Tell him, Gustave."
"The respectability," cried Gustave, significantly.
"We mean the respectability of it," repeated Franz, as if he were explaining something.
Walter looked first from one to the other, and did not seem to comprehend.
"Yes, Walter, Franz will tell you," said Gustave.
"Walter, our papa is a deacon, and carries a portfolio, and there where we live is a----"
"Yes," cried Gustave, "there on the Gracht, you know, lives M'neer Krulewinkel. He has a villa----"
"It's just on account of our standing--don't you see, Walter? And when a visitor comes our mother brings out the wine."
"Yes, Maderia, Maderia! And our tobacco-box is silver, and----"
"No, Franz, it isn't silver; but, Walter, it looks just like silver."
Our poor little sinner understood all of this, but he failed to see what bearing it might have on his own disappointed hopes. He stuttered: "Yes, Gustave--yes, Franz--but the peppermint----"