conceited enough for that. I told him the other day that he spoke very bad Dutch. “Oh, that is nothing,” said he, “it seems that a Governor is very seldom sent over who understands the language of the country.”
What shall I do with such a self-conceited fellow? He has not the least respect for my experience. When I told him this week that I had been a broker for seventeen years, he cited Busselinck and Waterman, who have been brokers for eighteen years, “and,” said he, “they have one year’s more experience.” Thus he caught me, for I must confess, because I like truth, that Busselinck and Waterman have little knowledge of business, and that they are old women and sneaks. Mary too is led astray. Only this weekit was her turn to read at breakfast, we were about to have the history of Lotwhen she suddenly stopped, and refused to proceed. My wife, who likes religion as much as I do, tried gently to persuade her to obedience, because it does not become a modest girl to be go obstinate. All in vain. Thereupon I, as a father, was obliged to scold her with much severity, because she spoiled, by her obstinacy, the comfort of the breakfast, which always has a bad influence on the whole day. But nothing would help, and she went so far as to say, that she would rather be beaten till she was dead than proceed with reading. I have punished her with three days’ confinement to her room on coffee and bread; I hope that it will do her good. To make this punish-
