But again there was a look of something like dread on the face of Mrs. Saunders, and although she promised to do what she could towards the furthering of Bertha’s wishes, there did not appear much prospect of ultimate success in that direction.
Bertha was turning her steps homeward again, feeling that she had not achieved much beyond a little extra heartache by her outing, when, as she was passing the little store kept by the fat German, she heard her name called, and, looking round, she saw him beckoning to her to come nearer.
For a moment she hesitated, half-disposed to go on her way without heeding a summons of such a sort. But reflecting that his manners were, after all, made in Germany, and hence their limitations, she crossed over the patch of trodden snow to the door of the little store and asked the fat man, what it was that he wished to say to her.
“Ach, himmel, it is the bad manners of me to call you so, but it is the bad foot on me which will let me only stand and not walk,” said the German, pointing downward to a bandaged foot, whereupon Bertha promptly forgave him for the lack of courtesy that he had displayed.
“You have a bad foot? I am very sorry,” she said gravely.
“It has been bad, very bad, ever since the day when the stranger’s boat got stuck on the Shark’s Teeth,” explained the fat man, puffing and snorting and spreading his pudgy hands out as if his feelings were too much for him, and then, suddenly leaning forward, he asked, in a confidential whisper: “Has the old woman given you your share yet?”
“What do you mean?” asked Bertha, drawing herself up with an offended air.
“The man we saved left money with the old woman to be given to you. I heard him say so myself. He thought that you were poor, and he sent the money to you with his best thanks. Has she given it to you?” said the German anxiously.
Bertha drew herself up, looking more haughty than ever. “No, indeed; and I should not think of taking money for doing a thing like that!” she said indignantly.
The German laughed in a deprecating fashion as he said, in his deep, rumbling tones: “That may be all very well for you, but she has kept the money that was meant for me also, and this I do not approve.”