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Several boys volunteered testimony in support of Dolf's claim, telling of the strange immunity they had enjoyed on various occasions after applying the resin, and Peter Queen distinctly remembered 'a feller up to Clunes' who, by a judicious use of the powder, was enabled to defy all authority and preserve an attitude of hilarious derision under the most awful tortures.
There had always been trouble enough between the two, but after Dolf's arrival the kitchen department grew very hot and uncomfortable, and even the wary Dolf himself, skilled as he was in Lotharian practices, frequently had great difficulty in steering clear of both Scylla and Charybdis.
One of the chief desires of Dolf's soul was to find out exactly how much money Clorinda had in the bank, but he had never been able, with all his arts, to bring her to that degree of confidence necessary to make him a partner in that dearest secret of her life.
But the worst of it was, Dolf's susceptible fancy led him strongly in another direction, even while his discretion warned him to follow up the success he had achieved with the culinary nymph. Victoria was a stylish, handsome young mulatto, and Clorinda was, undoubtedly, pure African to the very root of her genealogical tree.
Peterson, a six-foot Dane, an engine-driver at the Stream, and Billy's father, was volunteering for service in case Mr. Ham should need assistance in dealing with the two culprits; but Joel sent him away, and the boys breathed freely again. Their confidence in Dolf's 'rosum' did not leave them quite blind to the advantages of an amicable settlement of their little difference with Mr. Ham.
Clorinda was not prepossessing in her appearance, that her most partial friends would have been forced to admit; probably in her youth she might have had her attractions, but now that years, avarice, and a not very patient temper had worn their furrows in her face, it really required all the glitter of her reported wealth to make her endurable in Dolf's mercenary eyes.
Victoria had been so much occupied above stairs that she found no opportunity for observation, otherwise Dolf's manner and the mysterious air of importance which Clo assumed, would have warned her that something extraordinary had happened.
Tobias threw his cap up in the air, and Nelle, laughing, pinched the face of the new-born babe whom Madame Puzzel swaddled on her knee. When the baby was well wrapped up, Madame Puzzel placed it in Dolf's arms and he kissed it cautiously with little smacks. Riekje called Dolf to her side, took his head in her hand, and fell asleep until morning.
By the time Victoria came downstairs the table was spread sumptuously, and in order to carry out Dolf's extraordinary idea of complimenting Miss Elsie, there were sweetmeats and cakes, hot muffins, cold tongue, and stores of eatables that brought the water into Dolf's crafty mouth.
When they moved, the candlelight struck Dolf's shaven chin, Riekje's red lips, their necks or their pierced ears, as the sun strikes the belly of a fish below the water. Kettles, saucepans, and pots shone on the shelves and the shadows in the corners were soft as velvet. "What is the matter, Riekje?" cried Dolf suddenly, "you are as white as those plates in the cupboard, and your eyes are closed.
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