Read Ebook: Dry Fish and Wet: Tales from a Norwegian Seaport by Nilsen Anthon Bernhard Elias Worster W J Alexander William John Alexander Translator

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Ebook has 2361 lines and 87731 words, and 48 pages

"Nothing much to look at, more's the pity, but an excellent housekeeper and a good-hearted soul."

"And so it turned out happily after all?"

"Ay, that it did, but it didn't last long, worse luck. Amalie still kept longing for her Gronlund, and she got kidney disease and went off to join him--and there I was left once again all on my own, and this time with Maggie's boy and Amalie's girl."

"But you were glad to have the children, surely?"

"Well, yes, at times. But I can't help calling to mind the words of the prophet, Children are a blessing of the Lord, but a trial and a tribulation to man. It's true, it's true.... Well, William was going in for engineering, you see, and he was away in Germany at his studies--studying how to spend money, as far as I could see, with a crowd of mighty intelligent artist people he'd got in with. And what do you suppose he's doing now?"

Betty was working at her books again, writing away with all her might in the big ledger, while Holm went on with his story.

"He wants to be a painter--an artist, you'd say, and daubs away great slabs of picture stuff as big as this floor--but Lord save and help us, I wouldn't have the messy things hung up here. I told him he'd much better go into the shop and get an honest living in a decent fashion like his father before him--but no! Too common, if you please, too materialistic. And that's bad enough, but there's worse to it yet. Would you believe it, Miss Betty, he and those artist friends of his have turned Marie's head the same wry fashion, and make her believe she's cut out for an artistic career herself--a born opera singer, they say; and now she carols away up there till people think there's a dentist in the house. Oh, it's the deuce of a mess, I do assure you!"

Betty looked up from her book. "You must have the gift of good humour, Mr. Holm."

"Well, I hope so, I'm sure. Shouldn't like to be one of your doleful sort."

"A kind and hard-working man you've always been, I'm sure. A perfect model of a man."

"Perfect model--me? Lord preserve us, I wouldn't be that for worlds. Can't imagine anything more uninteresting than the perfect model type. No--I've just tried all along to be an ordinary decent man, that finds life one of the best things going. And when things happened to turn particularly nasty--no money, no credit, and that sort of thing--why, I'd just say to myself, 'Come along, my lad, only get to grips with it, and you'll pull through all right.' And then I could always console myself with the thought that when things were looking black, they couldn't get much blacker, so they'd have to brighten up before long."

"Yes, it takes sorrows as well as joys to make a life."

"That's true. But we make them both for ourselves mostly. If you only knew what fun I've got out of life at times; have to hammer out a bit of something lively now and then, you know! Look at us now, for instance, just sitting here talking. Isn't that heaps better than sitting solemnly like two mummies on their blessed pyramids?" And he swung round on his high stool till the screw creaked again.

"Yes, indeed, it's very nice, I'm sure." Betty began putting her books away, Holm walking up and down meanwhile with short, rapid steps. Upstairs, someone was singing to the piano.

"Oh, but surely, Mr. Holm, you needn't be so hard on them. Young people must have a little entertainment now and then--especially when they've a father who can afford it," she added a little wistfully.

"Afford it--h'm. As to that ... if they keep on the way they're going now, I'm not sure I shan't have to give them a bit of a lesson...." He crossed over to the desk, and, spreading out his elbows, looked quizzically at Betty.

"What do you think now--is Knut G. Holm too old to marry again?"

"Really, I'm sure I couldn't say," answered the girl, with a merry laugh. And, slipping past him, she took her jacket and hat.

"Good-night, Mr. Holm."

"Good-night, Miss Betty. I hope I haven't kept you too long with all my talk, but it's such a comfort to feel that there's one place in the house where there's somebody sensible to talk to."

He stood for some time looking after her.

"Not bad--not bad at all. Nice figure--trifle over slender in the upper works, perhaps; looks a bit worried at times; finds it hard to make ends meet, perhaps, poor thing. H'm. But she's a good worker, and that's a fact. Yes, I think this arrangement was a good idea."

Garner came in with the cash-box. "We've shut up outside, Mr. Holm. Was there anything more you wanted this evening?"

"No--no thanks. H'm, I say, that row and goings on upstairs, can you hear it out in the shop?"

"About the same as in here. But it's really beautiful music, Mr. Holm. I slipped out into the passage upstairs a little while back, and they were singing a quartette, but Miss Marie was taking the bass, and going so hard I'm sure they could hear her right up at the fire station."

"I've no doubt they could, Garner. But I'll give them music of another sort, and then--we'll see!" He flung the cash-box into the safe with a clang, and Garner judged it best to disappear without delay.

Outside in the shop he confided to Clasen that the old man was in a roaring paddy about the music upstairs; and the pair of them fell to speculating as to what would happen when he came up.

"Oh, nothing," said Clasen. "Those youngsters they always manage to get round him in the end."

"Might get sick of the whole business and give up the shop--or make it over to us, what?" added Garner, "as his successors," and he waxed enthusiastic over the idea as they strolled along to Syversen's Hotel for a little extra in the way of supper.

When Holm walked into the big drawing-room upstairs he was greeted with acclamation. "Hurrah for Maecenas! hurrah for the patron of Art! Hurrah!"

"Here, Frantz, you're a poet; get up and make a speech in honour of my noble sire."

Frantz Pettersen, a podgy little man with a big fair moustache, lifted his glass.

"Friends and brothers in Art, in the eternal realm of beauty! the halls wherein we live and move are bright and lofty, it is true, and our outlook is wide, unbounded. But let us not therefore forget the simple home of our youthful days, though it be never as poor and dry."

"Dry--what do you mean? It's not dry here, I hope?"

The speech was received with general acclamation.

Holm was taken by surprise, and hardly knew what to say. He could hardly open the campaign at such a moment with a sermon; mechanically he took the glass offered him. But hardly had he touched it with his lips than he asked in astonishment:

"When--where on earth did you get hold of that Madeira? Let me look at the bottle. I thought as much. Tar and feather me, if they haven't gone and snaffled my '52 Madeira! Six bottles that I'd been keeping for my jubilee in the business--all gone, I suppose. Nice children, I must say!"

He sat down in an arm-chair, fanning himself with a handkerchief.

"Oh, stop that nonsense, do," growled Holm. And, snatching up a bottle of the old Madeira, he took it into the dining-room and hid it behind the sofa.

"Dearest, darling papa, you're not going to be bad-tempered now, are you?" whispered Marie, throwing her arms around his neck.

"I'm not bad-tempered--I'm angry."

"Oh, but you mustn't. Why, what is there to be angry about?"

Holm was dumbfounded. Nothing to be angry about indeed. He ought perhaps to say thank you to these young rascals for allowing him to stay up with them?

"Shall I sing to you, papa?"

"Sing! no, thank you. I'd rather not."

"But what's the matter? What's it all about?"

"What's the matter--good heavens, why, my '52 Madeira, isn't that enough?"

"Oh, is that all? I'm sure it couldn't have been put to better use. You ought to have heard Frantz Pettersen making up things on the spur of the moment; it was simply lovely."

She had clambered up on his knee, with her arms round his neck; the others were still in the drawing-room.

"Lovely, was it, little one?" said Holm in a somewhat gentler voice.

"Yes, papa--oh, I don't know when I've enjoyed myself so much as this evening. And only fancy, Hilmar Strom, the composer--there, you can see, the tall thin man in glasses--he said I had a beautiful voice--beautiful!"

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