Page:Eekhoud - The New Carthage.djvu/216

188 If one passed through the carriage entrance, as dark as a tunnel in the fortifications, and came into the courtyard, one first saw an alert, but stout, old man, ruddy, with thin twisted legs that were buttressed more than was actually necessary, but which were in constant movement He was Pietje the door-keeper, Pietje de kromme—the knock-kneed, as the clerks and journeymen of the firm irreverently called him. But Pietje took no umbrage at the name. As soon as he saw you, he would take off his black cap with the lacquered peak and, if you asked for the head of the firm, he would say, according to the hour of the day … "At the back, in the house, if you please, sir;" or, "To the right, in his ofiice, at your service."

The courtyard, paved with solid bluestone, was generally obstructed by bags, cases, casks, barrels, demijohns, and leather bottles of all colors and dimensions. But Pietje, amused by your frank expression of surprise, would tell you that all this was but a minor warehouse, a stock of samples.

"At the Saint-Felix warehouse, or on the docks at the Old Basins, you can see some of the merchandise imported or exported by Daelmans-Deynze!"

Heavy trucks, drawn by the enormous horses of the Nations, their powerful flanks glistening, waited in the street to be loaded or unloaded. Van Liere, the warehouse-keepeer, thin and lanky in his jacket, clean-shaven, with the eye of a customs-inspector, a pencil and notebook in hand, was taking notes, adding figures, filling out blanks, seizing way-bills, looking over invoices, occasionally jumping, with the agility of a squirrel, upon a pile of merchandise, the condition of which he was examining, ejaculating questions, reproving his assistants, hurrying the truckmen in a