"Knut, my boy, you've been a considerable fool. You should have sent the youngsters off to Paris as they wanted, then you could have fixed things up here in your own fashion while they were away."
The thought that William might enter the lists against him as a rival for Betty's favour never occurred to him, however, until one day when Broker Vindt came round and found his friend Holm standing behind the counter in the shop, with William in possession of the inner office.
Vindt was the generally recognised and accredited jester of the town; there was nothing he would not find a way of poking fun at, and even Banker Hermansen had smilingly to submit to his witticisms.
Vindt was an old bachelor, a dried-up, lanky figure of a man, with a broad-brimmed felt hat set on his smooth black wig and a little florid face with a sharp nose.
"Beg pardon, Holm," he began, "would you mind asking if the senior partner's disengaged for a moment?"
"Oh, go to the devil!"
"Well, I was thinking of taking a holiday somewhere—and I dare say he'd put me up. Better than nothing, as the parson said when he found a button in the offertory box. You might say the same, you know; be thankful he's keeping you on at all."
"It's a good thing, if you ask me, to see young people doing something nowadays."
"Ah, my boy, it all depends what they're doing! Apropos, the other young person in there, is she to be taken into partnership as well? Deuced pretty girl that, Holm."
"Vindt, you're incorrigible. Come upstairs and have a glass of wine. I've got some fine '52 Madeira...."