Part 21 (2/2)
”Well, with your master, of course”
”With my master?”
”Yes, are you not in the service of Master Isaac Boxtel?”
”I?”
”Yes, you”
”But for whom do you take me, sir?”
”And for whom do you take me?”
”I hope, sir, I take you for what you are, -- that is to say, for the honorable Mynheer van Systens, Burgomaster of Haarlem, and President of the Horticultural Society”
”And what is it you told me just now?”
”I told you, sir, that my tulip has been stolen”
”Then your tulip is that of Mynheer Boxtel Well, my child, you express yourself very badly The tulip has been stolen, not from you, but from Mynheer Boxtel”
”I repeat to you, sir, that I do not knoho this Mynheer Boxtel is, and that I have now heard his name pronounced for the first time”
”You do not knoho Mynheer Boxtel is, and you also had a black tulip?”
”But is there any other besides
”Yes, -- that of Mynheer Boxtel”
”How is it?”
”Black, of course”
”Without speck?”
”Without a single speck, or even point”
”And you have this tulip, -- you have it deposited here?”
”No, but it will be, as it has to be exhibited before the co awarded”
”Oh, sir!” cried Rosa, ”this Boxtel -- this Isaac Boxtel -- who calls himself the owner of the black tulip ---- ”
”And who is its owner?”
”Is he not a very thin man?”
”Bald?”
”Yes”
”With sunken eyes?”
”I think he has”
”Restless, stooping, and bowlegged?”
”In truth, you draw Master Boxtel's portrait feature by feature”
”And the tulip, sir? Is it not in a pot of white and blue earthenware, with yellowish flowers in a basket on three sides?”
”Oh, as to that I am not quite sure; I looked more at the flower than at the pot”
”Oh, sir! that's my tulip, which has been stolen from me I came here to reclaim it before you and fro at Rosa ”What! you are here to claim the tulip of Master Boxtel? Well, I h”
”Honoured sir,” a little put out by this apostrophe, ”I do not say that I a to claim the tulip of Master Boxtel, but to reclaim my own”
”Yours?”
”Yes, the one which I have o and find out Master Boxtel, at the White Swan Inn, and you can then settlethat the cause seeht before King Solomon, and that I do not pretend to be as wise as he was, I shall contentthe existence of the black tulip, and ordering the hundred thousand guilders to be paid to its grower Good-bye, ly
”Only,and pretty, and as there ood advice Be prudent in this matter, for we have a court of justice and a prison here at Haarlely ticklish as far as the honour of our tulips is concerned Go, o, remember, Master Isaac Boxtel at the White Swan Inn”
And Mynheer van Systens, taking up his fine pen, resumed his report, which had been interrupted by Rosa's visit
Chapter 26
A Member of the Horticultural Society
Rosa, beyond herself and nearlyfound again, started for the White Swan, followed by the boath to knock down a dozen Boxtels single-handed
He had been made acquainted in the course of the journey with the state of affairs, and was not afraid of any encounter; only he had orders, in such a case, to spare the tulip