had taken up a very severe attitude to his father, had reproached him because he still "a young man," as Addie put it in his amusing way wanted to insult and strike a man of Uncle van Naghel's age, even though it was for Mamma's sake! And Addie had gone to Frans van Naghel, the eldest son, the undergraduate, of whom he was very fond; and Frans was furious, wanted to take his father's place and fight in his stead. But Addie had said that Papa was in the wrong, that Papa had lost his self-control; and he had calmed Frans and told him, his father, positively, that it was his, Van der Welcke's, duty to apologize to Uncle van Naghel! That boy, that boy, thought Van der Welcke, thinking half-angrily of his son's perpetual tutelage. It was really too silly: if he didn't look out, the brat would twist him round his little finger entirely. A little chap like that, a schoolboy of fourteen . . . and yet the beggar had managed so that Frans did not challenge Van der Welcke and that Van der Welcke had sent Van Naghel a note of apology, a note the thought of which made him boil even now, made him rant and curse at the thought that he had let himself be persuaded by the fourteen-year-old schoolboy. And then he had had to express his regret to Mamma van Lowe into the bargain; but that he didn't mind, for she was an old dear and he thought it too bad that the wretched affair should have made her ill. And so the fourteen-year-old schoolboy
