CLEMENTINE. He said that the ship was a floating coffin. Then I heard you say that in any case it would be the last voyage for the Hope.
BOS. [Angrily at first.] That damned boarding school; those damned boarding school fads! Walk if you like through the village like a fool, sketching the first rascal or beggar you meet! But don't blab out things you can be held to account for. A floating coffin! Say, rather, a drunken authority--The North, of Pieterse, and the Surprise and the Willem III and the Young John. I can keep on naming them. Half of the fishing fleet and half the merchant fleet are floating coffins. Did you hear that, Kaps?
KAPS. [Timidly.] No, Meneer, I don't hear anything.
BOS. If you had asked me: "Father, how is this?" I would have explained it to you. But you conceited young people meddle with everything and more, too! What stronger proof is there than the yearly inspection of the ships by the underwriters? Do you suppose that when I presently ring up the underwriter and say to him, "Meneer, you can plank down fourteen hundred guilders"--that he does that on loose grounds? You ought to have a face as red as a buoy in shame for the way you flapped out your nonsense! Nonsense, I say! Nonsense; that might take away my good name, if I wasn't so well known.
CLEMENTINE. [Sadly.] If I were a ship owner--and I heard----
BOS. God preserve the fishery from an owner who makes drawings and cries over pretty vases! I stand as a father at the head of a hundred homes. Business is business. When you get sensitive you go head over heels. What, Kaps? [Kaps makes a motion that he cannot hear.] Now, go to your mother. The Burgomaster's wife is making a call.
KAPS. Here is the muster roll. [Reading.] Willem Hengst, aged thirty-seven, married, four children----
KAPS. [Reading on.] Jacob Zwart, aged thirty-five years, married, three children. Gerrit Plas, aged twenty-five years, married, one child. Geert Vermeer, unmarried, aged twenty-six years. Nellis Boom, aged thirty-five years, married, seven children. Klaas Steen, aged twenty-four years, married. Solomon Bergen, aged twenty-five years, married, one child. Mari Stad, aged forty-five years, married. Mees, aged nineteen years. Jacob Boom, aged twenty years. Barend Vermeer, aged nineteen years. Pietje Stappers, aged twelve years.