"The likeness does not strike me as being so great," I answered; "do you think so yourself? I should never make such a mistake as taking her for you."
"Oh yes, indeed!" she replied; "at first it was almost unpleasant to me. Her father was, in his line, a well-to-do artisan, but things went badly with him, and he took to drink. The mother is not a very desirable person either, and so my uncle, who had known them many years, proposed that I should take the daughter as my maid."
It was a pleasure to me to talk with this pretty young girl. She was more natural and free from any affectation than any young woman I had met. It was easy to see she had plenty of common sense, and was well educated.
Mr. Frick did not tarry long. He came waddling in, clad in a large-checked, English pea-jacket, his full-blown face beaming like the sun. He was not satisfied this time with shaking one of my hands, but seized both in his gigantic paws. His praise of my skill was quite overwhelming and it was only by the greatest effort that I got him to change the subject.
After that followed an invitation to dinner at "Villa Ballarat," as he called the house. He would like to have a full description of how I had managed to discover the thieves.
This invitation clashed with my engagements that day, and I should have felt almost duty bound to refuse it, had I not happened to look at Miss Frick.
It appeared to me as if I could read something in her face which spoke of anxious expectation, and—I accepted the invitation.
The dinner went off very well. Old Frick told us how he had first become possessed of the tortoise; that, however, I will return to later.
Happily there was another person present who could listen to old Frick, while I had a much more interesting conversation with Miss Frick.
Young Einar, who seemed a fine young fellow, and whose occupation it was to keep his uncle's books and accounts, alone emptied a bottle of Pleidsieck monopole, and then stole away immediately after dinner with a good supply of his uncle's Havana cigars, to have a game of billiards at the Grand Hotel.