"Jantje!"
"Yes, husband?"
"What shall we do with it all?"
Such a question from Nils Petter was too much for Jantje all at once. She looked helplessly round the room as if seeking for somewhere to put it.
"It's a question what to do with any amount of capital these days. Shipowning's a risky business...." Nils Petter paced up and down thoughtfully.
Then Jantje had an inspiration. "Husband, there's the big clothes-chest, room for lots of money in that." And she hurried out into the passage and began dragging out the chest.
"No, no, Jantje; leave it alone. The money'll have to be put in the bank, of course. We can't keep it in the house."
There was a knock at the door. "Come in!" It was Watchmaker Rordam. "Congratulations, my boy. Grand piece of luck, what? Must be strange-like, to get all that heap of money at once."
"Well, ye-es," said Nils Petter; "it's a trouble to know what to do with one's capital, though; these savings banks pay such a miserable rate of interest." Jantje looked at him in surprise. Why, only a fortnight ago, when he had had to renew a bill at the bank, he had declared loudly against the "pack of Jews" for charging too high a rate.
"You won't forget your old friends, Nils Petter, I hope, now that you've come into a fortune," said Rordam.