“Quite so, old man,” answered the registrar, “therefore I have been unable to get married. But you are fortunate in having the means.”
The assistant hesitated to make his request. How could he have the audacity to ask this poor bachelor to help him to provide the expenses for the coming event? This bachelor, who had not the means to found a family of his own? He could not bring himself to do it.
When he came home to dinner, his wife told him that two gentlemen had called to see him.
“What did they look like? Were they young? Did they wear eye-glasses? Then there was no doubt, they were two lieutenants, old friends of his whom he had met at Vaxholm.”
“No, they couldn’t have been lieutenants; they were too old for that.”
“Then he knew; they were old college friends from Upsala, probably P. who was a lecturer, and O. who was a curate, now. They had come to see how their old pal was shaping as a husband.”
“No, they didn’t come from Upsala, they came from Stockholm.”
The maid was called in and cross-examined. She thought the callers had been shabbily dressed and had carried sticks.
“Sticks! I can’t make out what sort of people they can have been. Well, we’ll know soon enough, as they said they would call again. But to change the subject, I happened to see a basket of hothouse strawberries at a really ridiculous price; it really is absurd! Just imagine, hothouse strawberries at one and sixpence a basket! And at this time of the year!”
“But, my darling, what is this extravagance to lead to?”