"But if it isn't there?"
"I told you that it was there! You shall only catch the first one and then salmon fishing is open."
"But how do you know salmon exists when you haven't seen it?" argued the girl.
"By a mass of investigations too complicated to explain in conversation, partly done at sea....
"Only once!"
"I work as quickly as twenty, thanks to my superior intelligence—partly on my sofa but mostly in books. Anyway, will you insist to destroy the people, first with salmon and afterwards with a mission house which you have forgotten?"
"You are a demon, a devil!" exclaimed the girl between scorn and earnestness.
The commissioner, who only from a caprice had turned into skepticism, and now saw that just this made the most impression, found it best to continue this role.
"Surely you do not believe in God?" asked the girl with an air, as though she would eternally despise him if he answered in the negative.
"No, I do not."