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face, he suspected that he was lying, sometimes he
was certain of it and gave him a beating. What
he did not know was that for some time past the
boy had been committing petty thefts—a carrot
from a cart, a piece of liquorice from the sweet-
shop, mere trifles, such as, he was ashamed to
remember, Gerbrand himself had once been guilty
of taking.
He had to be punished every day. He was
allowed to play in their street, but not to go beyond
it, and the neighbours' children would run after
him as soon as they saw him. But when they began
to play, there would be squabbling and fighting ;
the girls walked away because he pushed them, and
went to play somewhere else. At the end of a
quarter of an hour he would be standing alone. But
once he was at a distance he became an object of
interest again, and, one after another, they drew
near him, the games started afresh, until once more
he began to punch and snatch their marbles from
the weaker ones. They called him a cheat, though
there were some of them who said that he gave away
his sweets without keeping back any for himself.
But never a morning passed without some mother
complaining to Werendonk that Floris had pinched
her child or torn its clothes. Complaints came, too,
from farther away ; the order not to leave the street
was disobeyed, and Werendonk had to punish him
so often for this that he began to hold his tongue