"'Drink dock yesterday—drink dock....'" he scratched his whiskers and muttered curses at Johnsen and his telegram.
Holm sat looking at the thing.
"Bramsen," he said at last, "I've got it. Don't you see what it is?"
"No, I'm blest if I do."
"It's come through a bit wrong, that's all, mutilated in transit. 'Erik' it ought to be. 'Erik dock yesterday'—that is—he's got there all right and docked yesterday."
Bramsen turned a somersault over the coffee-bags, slapped his thighs and stood doubled up with laughter.
"Well, to be sure! A nice lot they telegraph people must be over there! And I was certain sure he'd gone on the drink and sold us all up this time—ha, ha, ha!"
While Holm and Bramsen were thus consoling each other down at the quay, Mrs. Rantzau and Betty were sitting quietly in the little parlour now that the pupils had gone.
Betty was crying, with her arms round her mother's neck, while her mother pressed the girl closely to her, patting her hair tenderly.