"Aye, well enough, mine vrouw," he said, after a moment's silence, "but my brain turns somehow like a spinning-wheel. It will not be right till I get on the dykes again. When shall I be at work, think you?" "Hear the man!" cried Dame Brinker delighted, yet frightened, too, for that matter; "we must get him on the bed, Hans. Work, indeed!" They tried to raise him from the chair--but he was not ready yet. "Be off with ye!" he said, with something like his old smile (Gretel had never seen it before); "does a man want to be lifted about like a log? I tell you before three suns I shall be on the dykes again. Ah! there'll be some stout fellows to greet me. Jan Kamphuisen and young Hoogsvliet. They have been good friends to thee, Hans, I'll warrant." Hans looked at his mother. Young Hoogsvliet had been dead five years. Jan Kamphuisen was in the jail at Amsterdam. "Aye, they'd have done their share no doubt," said Dame Brinker, parrying the inquiry, "had we asked them. But what with working and studying, Hans has been busy enough without seeking comrades." "Working and studying," echoed Raff, in a musing tone; "can the youngsters read and cipher, Meitje?" "You should hear them!" she answered proudly. "They can run through a book while I mop the floor. Hans there is as happy over a page of big words as a rabbit in a cabbage patch--as for ciphering----" "Here, lad, help a bit," interrupted Raff Brinker. "I must get me on the bed again." XXXVIII THE THOUSAND GUILDERS None seeing the humble supper eaten in the Brinker cottage that night would have dreamed of the dainty fare hidden away near by. Hans and Gretel looked rather wistfully toward the cupboard as they drank their cupful of water and ate their scanty share of black bread; but even in thought they did not rob their father. "He relished his supper well," said Dame Brinker nodding sidewise toward the bed, "and fell asleep the next moment--Ah, the dear man will be feeble for many a day. He wanted sore to sit up again, but while I made show of humoring him, and getting ready, he dropped off. Remember that, my girl, when you have a man of your own (and many a day may it be before that comes to pass), remember you can never rule by differing; 'humble wife is husband's boss----' Tut! tut! never swallow such a mouthful as that again, child; why, I could make a meal off of two such pieces. What's in thee, Hans? One would think there were cob-webs on the wall." "Oh, no, mother, I was only thinking----" "Thinking, about what? Ah, no use asking," she added in a changed tone. "I was thinking of the same a while ago--well, well--It's no blame if we _did_ look to hear something by this time about the thousand guilders; but, not a word--no--it's plain enough he knows naught about them." Hans looked up anxiously, dreading lest his mother should grow agitated, as usual, when speaking of the lost money; but she was silently nibbling her bread and looking with a doleful stare toward the window.