“Good-bye, uncle! I must get home to my books.”
“Stop a bit! Aren’t you going to Aunt Maren’s this evening? She asked me to invite you.”
“No, thanks, I haven’t time,” shouted Cousin Hans, who was already several paces away.
“There’s to be a ladies’ party—young ladies!” bawled Uncle Frederick; for he did not know what had come over his nephew.
But Hans shook his head with a peculiar energetic contempt, and disappeared round the corner.
“The deuce is in it,” thought Uncle Frederick, “the boy is crazy, or—oh, I have it!—he’s in love! He was standing here, babbling about love, when I found him—outside No. 34. And then his interest in old Schrappe! Can he be in love with Miss Betty? Oh, no,” thought Uncle Frederick, shaking his head, as he, too, continued on his way, “I don’t believe he has sense enough for that.”
II.
Cousin Hans did not eat much dinner that day. People in love never eat much, and, besides, he did not care for rissoles.
At last five o’clock struck. He had already taken up his position on the ramparts, whence he could survey the whole esplanade. Quite right: there came the black frock-coat, the light trousers, and the well-brushed hat.
Cousin Hans felt his heart palpitate a little. At first he attributed this to a sense of shame in thus craftily setting a trap for the good old captain. But he soon discovered that it was the sight of the beloved one’s father that set his blood in a ferment. Thus reassured, he began, in accordance with Uncle Frederick’s advice, to draw strokes and angles in the sand, attentively fixing his eyes, from time to time, upon the Castle of Akerhuus.