"Could it be Boomphoffen," suggested the dame. "I've heard how they've had two sons turn out bad--Gerard and Lambert?" "It might be," said Raff. "Look if there's letters on the watch; that'll guide us some." "Bless thee, man," cried the happy dame, eagerly lifting the watch, "why thou'rt sharper than ever! Sure enough. Here's letters! L. J. B. That's Lambert Boomphoffen you may depend; what the J is for I can't say; but they used to be grand kind o' people, high feathered as fancy fowl. Just the kind to give their children all double names, which isn't scripture anyway." "I don't know about that, vrouw. Seems to me there's long mixed names in the Holy Book, hard enough to make out. But you've got the right guess at a jump. It was your way always," said Raff, closing his eyes; "take the watch to Boompkinks and try." "Not Boompkinks; I know no such name; it's Boomphoffen." "Aye, take it there." "Take it there, man! why the whole brood of 'em's been gone to America these four years. But go to sleep, Raff; you look pale and out of strength. It'll all come to you, what's best to do, in the morning. "So, Mistress Gretel! Here you are at last!" * * * * * Before Raff awoke that evening, the fairy godmother, as we know, had been at the cottage, the guilders were once more safely locked in the big chest, and Dame Brinker and the children were faring sumptuously on meat and white bread and wine. So the mother, in the joy of her heart, told them the story of the watch as far as she deemed it prudent to divulge it. It was no more than fair, she thought, that the poor things should know, after keeping the secret so safe, ever since they had been old enough to know anything. XLIII A DISCOVERY The next sun brought a busy day to the Brinkers. In the first place the news of the thousand guilders had of course to be told to the father. Such tidings as that surely could not harm him. Then while Gretel was diligently obeying her mother's injunction to "clean the place fresh as a new brewing," Hans and the dame sallied forth to revel in the purchasing of peat and provisions. Hans was careless and contented; the dame was filled with delightful anxieties caused by the unreasonable demands of ten thousand guilders' worth of new wants that had sprung up like mushrooms in a single night. The happy woman talked so largely to Hans on their way to Amsterdam, and brought back such little bundles after all, that he scratched his bewildered head as he leaned against the chimneypiece, wondering whether, "bigger the pouch, tighter the string" was in Jacob Cats, and therefore true, or whether he had dreamed it when he lay in a fever.