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PINOZA was walking thoughtfully down the Kalverstraat, when some one said, "Ha, ha! how proud we are!"

Spinoza turned round; it was Frau Gertrui Ufmsand who was looking out of her ground floor window.

"How are you?" she said. "You look as sour as vinegar. I have only seen you once in this street since Magister Nigritius died, and that was a fortnight ago. You passed with Olympia van den Ende. I said 'Good evening' twice, but you were better employed, neither of you either heard or saw me. Those were fine times, were they not, when you came every day to the Magister? But you have grown twenty years older since those days. Ah! we have gone through a deal with our apartments since then. First we had a painter, who went to vespers in the church where clinking glasses are the bells, then he would come home a full fool and awake us out of our beauty sleep. Then we had a widow who would have skinned a flint, and looked so sharply after us all day we could hardly breathe before her. It was my