Dry Fish and Wet Part 26

The applause was hearty and unanimous.

"Bravo, Hans!" came a deep voice from the gallery. All turned to see who had spoken. Ah, there--it was Bramsen, standing up with both hands outstretched and clapping thunderously.

Amanda flushed with embarra.s.sment, and nudged her father to make him stop. But he snapped out impatiently, "You leave me alone!" and went on clapping.

Among the numerous extras was a "Ballad theme with variations," which the more exacting critics considered somewhat out of place. One there was, however, who thought otherwise, and that was Amanda. The soft, swaying rhythm of "The Little Fisher-Maid" filled her with delight, and she clapped as enthusiastically as her father had done.

"Father, I think I've learned something from that concert this evening," said William, as they walked home.

"Well, my boy, and what was that?"

"Why, that genius is like pure gold; if Nature hasn't put it there it's no use trying to make it."

"You're right, my son. And sensible people don't try. It's no good setting up to do the work of your Creator. What do you say, Banker?"

"Eh, what's that?" Hermansen was walking arm in arm with Mrs.

Rantzau, and the pair of them were evidently oblivious of all but each other.

"I say, the best thing we can do in this life's to live like sensible people."

"_Errors and omissions excepted_," answered the banker, and he pressed his fiancee's hand long and tenderly.

XII

OLD NICK

"This where Petter Nekkelsen lives?"

The speaker was an awkward-looking lad, acting as postman in Strandvik for the first time.

"No, you muddlehead." Old Lawyer Nickelsen held out his hand for the letters. "This is where Peder, comma, N. Nickelsen, full stop, lives.

And a nice lot of louts they've got going around, that can't learn to call folk by their proper names!"

Thor Smith, the magistrate's clerk, was of the same opinion, but liked a touch of honest dialect occasionally; he was not unwilling on occasion to contradict Old Nick.

"Honest dialect, indeed! Rank impertinence, I call it! But wait a bit, young fellow; in a few years' time you'll be wis.h.i.+ng these understrappers at the North Pole, or some other cool place."

The two men filled their pipes, and took up their position on the veranda of Lawyer Nickelsen's house, continuing their discussion as to the merits of natural simplicity, concerning which they held diametrically opposite views.

The lawyer was a bachelor of sixty-seven, and kept what he called a home for young men of decent behaviour and tolerable manners. In particular he had, ever since he first came to the place forty-three years earlier, kept open house for the magistrate's clerks successively, taking them under his paternal care and protection from their first entering on their duties in the town.

Smith and Nickelsen sat on the veranda, but somehow the discussion fell curiously flat. Smith was unusually absent and uncommunicative, to such a degree that Nickelsen at last asked him point blank what was the matter.

"Oh, nothing. H'm. I say, Nickelsen, that fellow Prois--he's an intolerable old curmudgeon."

"Oho, so that's the trouble! Won't have you for a son-in-law, what?"

"Oh, don't talk nonsense."

Smith stepped aside, and sc.r.a.ped out the tobacco from the pipe he had just filled, but Old Nick's searching glance perceived that he had flushed up to the roots of his hair.

"My dear Smith, I agree with you that Tulla Prois is a charming girl.

A pity, though, they couldn't find another name to give her. They were making songs about it last winter."

"Oh, don't drag in that silly stuff, Nickelsen, for Heaven's sake. I can't see anything funny in it myself."

Old Nick laid down his pipe and put on his gla.s.ses, and sat watching the other with an expression only half serious. He found himself hard put to it not to laugh. At last, finding nothing more suitable to say, he ventured in a tone of unnatural innocence: "Smith, what do you say to a drink?"

Old Nick was irresistible. Smith could not help laughing himself.

"Oh, you incorrigible old joker," he said, giving the other a dig in the ribs.

The ice once broken, and under the influence of a gla.s.s of good Madeira--Old Nick invariably had "something special" in that line--Smith opened his heart, and revealed Tulla Prois in the leading role of Angel, etcetera, Papa Prois being cast for the part of hard-hearted father, or "intolerable old curmudgeon"--which amounted to much the same thing.

"I met him yesterday, just come back from Christiania, with a whole armful of parcels he could hardly carry. I went up as politely as could be, and offered to lend a hand, and what d'you think he said?"

Old Nick shook his head and tried to look interested.

"Shouted out at the top of his voice so all the street could hear him, 'No, I'm d.a.m.ned if you do!' Nice sort of father-in-law that, eh?"

"There's a dance on at the Seamen's Union to-morrow, Smith. You're going, I suppose?"

Smith brightened up at once. "Yes, of course, we must go; you must come along too, Nickelsen. But--but--isn't old Prois chairman of the committee?"

"Quite so--and for that very reason all the more chance of your meeting your--young lady, I was going to say."

"Then you'll come?"

"Me? Go to a dance, with my gout and all? Well, I don't know, perhaps I might. Get myself up spick and span, and have my corns cut specially for the occasion--I might pa.s.s in a crowd, what?"

The dance took place, and on the following day Old Nick sat pondering and trying to remember what had happened after twelve o'clock, his memory being somewhat defective.

No--it was no good. He could not remember a thing. He had a vague recollection of talking to Tulla Prois, and saying a whole lot of extravagantly affectionate things, but beyond that all was confusion.

"Only hope I didn't make a scene, that's all. H'm--Puh--weakness of mine--infernal nuisance. And I don't seem to get any better--oh, well, what's the odds after all!"

The final note of resignation in his monologue revived his inexhaustible natural good spirits, and with a contented smile he sat down to indite the following letter to Smith, who was, he knew, in court that day:

"DEAR SMITH,--For various reasons I find myself unable to recollect anything of last night's happenings. And being in consequence much troubled in mind lest something scandalous may have taken place, and my position of unimpeachable respectability in the town undermined, you are hereby invited to dine with me to-day, in order that we can discuss the matter and, if necessary, find some means of meeting the situation.--Yours,

"OLD NICK."

Old Martha, Nickelsen's housekeeper, shuffled along to the court-house, with strict injunctions to bring back an answer, and returned half an hour later with a sc.r.a.p of paper from Smith, on which were scribbled the following lines in pencil: