"Her name's Jantjedina van Groot, my good and faithful wife," Nils Petter explained. Bernt Jorgensen, who had not yet recovered from his astonishment, only grunted again and again: "H'm—h'm——" and made haste towards home, followed by Nils Petter and his bride.
This time nothing was said about the freight money, which was just as well for all concerned, seeing it had all been spent in the purchase of various household goods and extra provisions with which to celebrate the occasion. Nils Petter's new relations in Holland, too, had had to be treated in hospitable fashion—which was just as well for them, since he never called there again!
Bernt Jorgensen decided that it would be more economical to pension off Nils Petter, and get a skipper of the old school to take over the Eva Maria; after which there was rarely any trouble about the freight money.
"Ah, but expenses now aren't what they were in my time," Nils Petter would say.
Which, in one sense, was perfectly true.
XVIII
THE HENRIK IBSEN
"Well, and what are you doing with that brat of yours, Birkebeineren," asked Hansen the shipbroker, one day, meeting Soren Braaten in the street. "Got any freight yet?"
"No, worse luck. These wretched steamers take all there is. I can't see what's the good of steam anyway. We got along all right without it before, but it's all different now. Doesn't give a poor man time to breathe."