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slowly as though his thoughts were elsewhere, but
sometimes he heard what. one of the children, was
saying, and he was ready at once with a rebuke or a
slap. Particularly himself, Gerbrand, he picked
out for his homilies on sin ; on the slightest provo-
cation he would say : e Look out, mind what you're
doing; sin is at the door, you'll come to a bad
end.3 During the last two years of his life, after
their mother's death, everyone could see that he
had something on his mind. In the evening, when
the lamp was lighted, he would sit for hours, after
he had laid aside the newspaper, gazing in front of
him, until suddenly he would stroke his head
impatiently, stand up and shift something on the
side table, or on the mantelpiece. Then he would
drive the younger ones up to bed, and would follow
them himself. Later he developed the habit of
going out as soon as the shop was shut, without his
supper, without even checking the money in the
till. No one had ever seen him go in anywhere or
walking with anyone, and there was no doubt that
the neighbours were right about that. He just
wandered about the town. Then he would have to
sit up late to do his accounts. One evening, when
he had not returned by twelve o'clock, the boys
knocked up Thijs, and some of their friends went
to look for him in the town ; the coffee-houses were
shut. Gerbrand went and walked along by the
Spaarne, because he had at once thought of an