"Well ..." the examiner turned to the censors. "I think that ought to be enough...?" And the pair of them nodded approval.
"Right! That will do." Dirrik was dismissed with a gesture, and, making his bow to each in turn, he hurried out as fast as he could.
Next day one of the censors, Skipper Wleugel, came down to the school and informed us that Dirrik had passed, albeit with lowest possible marks.
Followed cheers for Dirrik, and cheers for the examiner, and cheers for Knap—the last-named happening to come out just at that moment, to see what all the noise was about. That evening Dirrik invited Rudolf and myself to the feast he had promised—great slabs of steak and heaps of onions, with beer and snaps ad lib., and toddy and black cigars to top off with.
And going home that night we knocked the stuffing out of five young students from the Academy, on the grounds that they lacked the higher education Dirrik now possessed. Altogether, it was a most successful evening.
Dirrik went back home after that and married his Margine. Three months later he was the father of a bouncing boy, who was christened Sinus Knap Didriksen, in pious memory of his father's studies in the art of navigation and his teacher in the same.
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