"We'll manage that all right. It's very simple. I'll lend your mother the money, do you see, and then, when you've learnt enough and can play properly yourself, you can pay it back—if you want to, that is."
"Oh—oh, how good you are! May I run home and tell mother, now?"
"Yes, run along and tell her as quickly as you like. Only understand, not a word to anyone else about it. I'll come round this evening, anyway, and fix it all up."
Hans, in his delight, forgot all about hiding the hole in his trousers; he grasped his friend's hands and looked at him with glistening eyes.
"Is it really true—that I'm to go to Christiania?"
"True as ever could be, little lad, and now off you go—I'll come along soon."
Holm took the organist's letter and read it through once again.
"Noble old fellow—so you'd sacrifice your hard-earned money and give your trouble for nothing? Not if I know it; you shan't be a loser there. And as for Hans, I'll see to his education myself. He shall go to Paris instead of those madcap youngsters with their parties. My '52 Madeira too! But we'll soon put a stop to that."