Dry Fish and Wet Part 14

"You're not far out either. I like them new myself."

"But I was going to tell you, I'd a rare time of it here the other day. You've maybe heard about me gammoning the youngsters down here--ay, and others too for that matter, simple folk like Garner, for instance--that I could talk Chinese through having picked up the lingo the five years I was on board the _Albatros_ in the China Seas?"

And, by way of ill.u.s.tration, Bramsen showed his eyes round sideways, screwed up his mouth and uttered the following syllables: "Hi--ho--fang--chu--ka--me--lang--poh--poh--ku!"

Holm laughed till he had to sit down on a barrel. Bramsen was in his element now; Andrine and the Salvation Army, Amanda and her tulips, were forgotten.

"Well, the day before yesterday, while I was stacking fish up in the loft, in comes an old gentleman, sort of learned and reverend looking he was.

"'Mr. Paal Abrahamsen?' says he, and looks at me solemn-like through a pair of blue spectacles.

"'That's me, your Highness,' says I, for I judged he must be something pretty high. Then he puts down his stick, a mighty fine one with a silver top, and opens a big book.

"Aha, thinks I to myself, it'll be the census, that's it. For you know there's been all this business about taking people's census ever since New Year. Well, if he wanted my census, I was agreeable, so I started away polite as could be:

"'Surname and Christian names, married or single, and so on, that's what you'll be wanting,' says I.

"'No, my friend,' says he, 'I only called to inquire--you speak Chinese, I understand. Several years in the country, were you not?'

"Well, I reckoned he couldn't be a Chinaman himself. I gave a squint up under his spectacles to see if his eyes were slantywise, but they were all right.

"'H'm,' says I, 'I know a little, but it's nothing much. Not worth counting, really.'

"'Don't be afraid, my good man. It was just a few simple words and phrases in the language I'd very much like to ask about. My name is'--well, it was Professor something or other--Birk or Cork or Stork or something--'from Christiania,' he said.

"'Well,' thinks I to myself, 'it doesn't look as if he knew much more than I do myself. I may bluff him yet.' And we squatted down on a barrel apiece, with an empty sugar-box between us for a table.

"'Mr. Abrahamsen,' says he, 'if you'd kindly repeat a sentence, anything you like, in Chinese.' And he takes up a grand gold pencil-case and starts to write in the book.

"'Aha,' thought I, 'now we're sitting to the hardest part,' as the miller said when he got to the eighth commandment. Anyhow, here goes.

And I rattles off, solemn-like: 'Me--hoh--puh--fih--chu--lang--ra-- ta--ta--poh--uh--ee--lee--shung--la--uh--uh--uh!' And down it all goes in his book like winking.

"'Very good, very good. And now, what does it mean?'

"'What it means----' Well, that was a nasty one, as you can imagine.

Funny thing, but I'd never thought about that. 'Mean--why--well, it means--H'm. Why, it's as much as to say--well, it's a sort of--sort of national anthem, as you might call it. _Sons of China's Ancient Land._ Not quite that exactly, but something like it, you understand.

Chinese is--well, it's different, you know.'

"He looked at me pretty sharply under his gla.s.ses, but I stood my ground and never winked a muscle. And then, bless me if he wasn't mean enough to ask me to say it all over again.

"Well, I could have stood on my head in the dark easier than remember what it was I'd said before. So I puts on an air, superior-like, and says to him:

"'Wait a bit, it's your turn now. Let's see if you can manage it first.'

"'Well, my good sir, to begin with, _Sons of Norway's Ancient Land_ is a sort of national anthem if you like, but I hardly think it's been translated into Chinese. And in the second place, the word for _sons_ is "Yung-li," not "Me-hoh," as you said.'

"'Beg pardon, Professor, but there's different dialectrics out there, same as here: some talks northland and some westland fas.h.i.+on, not to speak of shorthand, and it's all as different as light and dark.'

"Well, as luck would have it, that set him laughing, and he shuts up the big book and tucks away the pencil in his waistcoat pocket. And he thanks me most politely for the information.

"'You're very welcome, I'm sure,' says I.

'Ah--dec--oh--oh--shung--la--la--poh!'

"But if we ever get another of that learned sort along, why, I'm going to tell them Paal Abrahamsen's dead and gone, poor lad, and can't talk Chinese any more. I never was much good at these examinations."

VII

HOLM & SON

There was a marked change in the office now. Every day, when Holm came in, he would find William seated at his desk, opposite Miss Betty. Early and late, William was always there, working away to all appearance like a steam engine. This in itself was excellent, of course, but, on the other hand, it destroyed all chance of a comfortable chat with Betty _tete-a-tete_. And every day Holm felt more and more convinced that Betty and he were made for one another.

Or at least that Betty was made for him.

"You must get the hang of the outside business too, my son," he observed one day. "Down at the waterside, for instance, there's a lot needs looking after there."

"Yes, father," said William respectfully, "but I want to get thoroughly into the bookkeeping first, and Miss Rantzau is helping me."

There was nothing to be said to this, of course, but it was annoying, to say the least. And Holm senior, thinking matters over in his leisure hours, would say to himself:

"Knut, my boy, you've been a considerable fool. You should have sent the youngsters off to Paris as they wanted, then you could have fixed things up here in your own fas.h.i.+on while they were away."

The thought that William might enter the lists against him as a rival for Betty's favour never occurred to him, however, until one day when Broker Vindt came round and found his friend Holm standing behind the counter in the shop, with William in possession of the inner office.

Vindt was the generally recognised and accredited jester of the town; there was nothing he would not find a way of poking fun at, and even Banker Hermansen had smilingly to submit to his witticisms.

Vindt was an old bachelor, a dried-up, lanky figure of a man, with a broad-brimmed felt hat set on his smooth black wig and a little florid face with a sharp nose.

"Beg pardon, Holm," he began, "would you mind asking if the senior partner's disengaged for a moment?"

"Oh, go to the devil!"

"Well, I was thinking of taking a holiday somewhere--and I dare say he'd put me up. Better than nothing, as the parson said when he found a b.u.t.ton in the offertory box. You might say the same, you know; be thankful he's keeping you on at all."

"It's a good thing, if you ask me, to see young people doing something nowadays."

"Ah, my boy, it all depends _what_ they're doing! Apropos, the other young person in there, is she to be taken into partners.h.i.+p as well?

Deuced pretty girl that, Holm."

"Vindt, you're incorrigible. Come upstairs and have a gla.s.s of wine.

I've got some fine '52 Madeira...."

"Started as early as that, did you? No, thanks all the same. I think I'll wait till the little Donna inside there's moved upstairs for good, then perhaps we may get a look in at the office again some day."

And Vindt strode out of the shop. Crossing the square, he met Hermansen, who had just come from the repair shops, where the Spaniard was being overhauled. The only part of her hull that could be considered sound consisted of a few plates at the after end.

Wherefore Vindt naturally offered his congratulations, "All's well that ends well, eh, what?"