Dry Fish and Wet Part 5

But the mere suggestion sent Amanda off into a fresh burst of tears.

"There, there, child, I'll take you to the theatre, then, but on one condition."

Amanda looked up expectantly. "Yes?"

"You're never to think of singing for money yourself, or going on the stage, or anything like that. You understand?"

The girl had no idea of what was in his mind, and answered mechanically, "No, father--and you'll take me to see _Monkey Tricks_ after all?"

"All right! but don't let your mother know, that's all."

Amanda was out of the door like an arrow, and hurried home at full speed. That evening she and her father sat up in the gallery, thoroughly enjoying themselves. Bramsen, it must be confessed, had taken the t.i.tle literally, and waited expectantly all through the piece for the monkey to appear, and was disappointed in consequence, but seeing Amanda so delighted with the play as it was, he said nothing about it. Had he been alone he would have demanded his money back; after all, it was rank swindling to advertise a piece as Monkey Tricks, when there wasn't a monkey.

Meanwhile, Andrine had gone to the meeting, and waited patiently for the others to appear--they had promised to come on after. Here, however, she was disappointed, as usual.

When the backsliders came home, they found her deploring the vanity of this world, the imperfections of our mortal life, and the weakness of human clay against the powers of evil.

Bramsen and Amanda let her go on, as they always did, exchanging glances the while; occasionally, when her back was turned, Bramsen would make the most ludicrous faces, until Amanda had to go out into the kitchen and laugh.

Bramsen was fond of his wife; she was indeed so good-hearted and unselfish that no one could help it; while Amanda, for her part, respected her mother as the only one who could keep her in order. And indeed it was needed, "with a father that never so much as thought of punis.h.i.+ng the child."

Bramsen himself had never been thrashed in his life, except by his comrades as a boy, and had always conscientiously paid back in full.

He had had no experience of the chastening rod, and could not conceive that anything of the sort was needed for Amanda.

Consequently, the relation between father and daughter was of the nature of an alliance as between friends, and as the years went on, the pair of them were constantly combining forces to outwit Andrine.

Bramsen had no idea of the value of money, or its proper use and application, wherefore Andrine had, in course of time, taken over charge of the family finances, and kept the savings-bank book,--a treasure which Bramsen himself was allowed to view on rare occasions, and then only from the outside, its contents being quite literally a closed book to him. Amanda and he would often put their heads together and fall to guessing how much there might be in the book, "taking it roughly like," but the riddle remained unsolved.

Every month Bramsen brought home his pay and delivered it dutifully into Andrine's hands; he made no mention, however, of the ten-s.h.i.+lling rise that had been given him, but spent the money on little extras and outings for himself and Amanda, whom he found it hard to refuse at any time.

A month before, it had been her great wish to have an alb.u.m "to write poetry in"; all the other girls in her cla.s.s had one, and she simply couldn't be the only one without. Bramsen could not understand what pleasure there was to be got out of such an article; much better to get a song book with printed words and have done with it. But Amanda scorned the suggestion, and the alb.u.m was duly bought. She had got two entries in it already, one from Verger Klemmeken of Strandvik, an old friend of her father's, who wrote in big straggling letters:

"Whene'er these humble lines you see, I pray that you'll remember me."

and one from Miss Tobiesen, an old lady at the infirmary, who had been engaged seven times, and therefore judged it appropriate to quote:

"'Tis better to have loved and lost Than never to have loved at all."

Amanda then insisted that her father should contribute something, but Bramsen declared in the first place that the alb.u.m was much too fine a thing for his clumsy fist, and furthermore, that he couldn't hit on anything to write. Amanda, however, gave him no peace till he consented, and at last, after much effort, the worthy man achieved the following gem:

"I, Amanda's only father, Love her very much but rather Fear she causes lots of bother To her wise and loving mother."

This elegant composition was unfortunately not appreciated by Amanda, who, to tell the truth, was highly displeased. Fancy writing such a thing in her book--why, the whole cla.s.s would laugh at her. Bramsen was obliged to scratch it out, but in so doing, scratched a hole in the paper, leaving no alternative but to take out the page altogether, much to Amanda's disgust.

Bramsen's highest ambition in life was to be master of a steamboat; not one of the big vessels that go as far as China, say, or Copenhagen--that, he realised, was out of the question, in view of his large contempt for examinations, mate's certificates and book-learning generally. The goal of his desire, the aim of all his dearest dreams, was a tugboat, a smart little devil of a craft with a proper wheel-house amids.h.i.+ps and booms and hawsers aft.

A grand life it would be, to go fussing about up and down the fjord, meeting old acquaintances among the fishermen and pilots--yo, heave ho, my lads! He had often suggested to Andrine that the contents of the savings-bank book might be devoted to the purchase of a tug, but Andrine would cross herself piously, and urge him to combat all temptation and evil inspirations of the sort. Bramsen could not see anything desperately evil in the idea himself; he found it more depressing to think that he should spend the remainder of his days in the stuffy atmosphere of the warehouse on the quay. Was it reasonable, now, for a man like himself to be planted, like a geranium in a flower-pot, among sugar-boxes, flour-sacks, and store-keeping trash?

"Ay, life's a queer old tangle sometimes," murmured Bramsen to himself, "and we've got to make the best of it, I suppose." And he cast a longing glance through the doorway of the shed, at Johnsen, of the tug _Rap_, steaming down the fjord with his tow.

IV

HERMANSEN OF THE BANK

Hermansen was manager of the local bank. He and Knut Holm had never been friends, and though outwardly their relations were to all seeming amicable enough, the att.i.tude of each toward the other was really one of armed neutrality.

The banker was in all things cold, precise and dignified, with a military stiffness of bearing, and devoid of all softer sentiment or feeling.

Entrenched behind his counter at the bank, he would glance frigidly at any bill presented, and if the security appeared to him insufficient, he would hand it back with the remark: "We have no money to-day," though the coffers might be full to bursting.

He was an old bachelor, and Holm was wont to declare that if Hermansen, at the Creation, had been set in Adam's place in the Garden of Eden and found himself alone with Eve, he would have declined to discount any promissory notes of hers, and our planet in consequence have been as uninhabited as the moon.

Hermansen was really quite a good-looking man; his tall, slender figure in tight-fitting coat, his iron-grey hair brushed a little forward on either side of his clean-shaven face, the narrow, close-set lips, combined to give him an appearance of distinction fitted for a member of the diplomatic corps.

He was a smart man of business, not only in the affairs of the bank, but also for his own account. Whenever an opportunity occurred of making money, whether by purchase of real property, bankrupt stock or other means, he was always ready to step in at the most favourable moment. He was generally considered one of the richest men in the town, and could afford to speculate at long sight; he was too wise, however, to give any grounds for the suspicion that he took undue advantage of his position. But, as Holm would say, "he's a devilish sharp nose, all the same; he can smell a coming failure years before the man himself has ever thought of it." And it was Holm's great ambition to get the better of him and make the banker burn his fingers in a way he should remember. But it was no easy matter, and up to now all his attempts in that direction had recoiled upon himself.

There was that affair of the building site behind the Town Hall, for instance; Holm's temper went up to boiling point even now whenever he thought of it.

Hermansen, he knew, had had an eye on the place for years, and Holm was sure that by snapping it up himself he would be able to make a few hundred pounds by selling it again to his rival. Accordingly, when the site was put up for auction, he bought it in himself under the very nose of the banker, and gladly paid five hundred for it, though he knew four hundred would have been nearer the mark.

On the day following the sale he encountered Hermansen in the street.

"Ah, Mr. Holm, so you were left with that site yesterday?"

Aha, thought Holm, he's working up to it already.

"Why, yes, I thought I'd take it. Fine bit of ground, you know, splendid situation--but I'm open to sell, at a reasonable advance, of course."

"Thanks very much--but I'm not a buyer myself. By the way, I suppose you know there's a condition attached to the building: no windows to overlook the Town Hall. That means the frontage will have to be in the little back street behind, on the shady side. H'm, lowers the value of the property, of course. Still, taking it all round, I should say it was quite a fair deal."

Holm stood looking helplessly after him; he had had no idea of any such condition attached, and the thought of his oversight made him furious for months after. The site lay there vacant to this day, a piece of waste ground, with a big open ditch running through it.

Vindt, the stockbroker, had named it "Holm's Ca.n.a.l," after a larger and more celebrated piece of water with which Knut Holm had nothing to do. And some ill-disposed person had written to the local paper, complaining of the "stink" which arose from the water in question.

Holm found the office considerably pleasanter and more comfortable since Miss Betty's installation. An outward and visible sign of the change was the vase of fresh flowers which she placed on the desk each morning, showing that even a dusty office might be made to look cheerful and nice.

Already the two of them chatted together as if they had known each other for years, and the relations between master and employee grew more and more cordial.

Holm, of course, was always the one to open conversation; he talked, indeed, at times to such an extent that Betty was obliged to beg him to stop, as she could not get on with her work. This generally led to a pause of a quarter of an hour or so, during which Holm would sit watching her over his gla.s.ses while she entered up from daybook to ledger with a certain careless ease. Wonderful, thought Holm to himself, how attractive a fair-haired girl can look when she's dark eyebrows and eyelashes, and those blue eyes. Pity she always keeps her mouth tight shut, and hides her lovely teeth.

He sat lost in contemplation, watching her so intently that she flushed right up to her fair head.

"There's the telephone, Mr. Holm," she said desperately, at last, by way of diverting his attention.

"Thanks very much, but I never use the telephone myself. I don't care to stand there like a fool talking down a tube, and likely as not with half a dozen people listening all over the place. No, thank you, I don't think my special brand of eloquence is suited to the telephone service."