“There ought to be a limit to self-conceit as well as to other things. You are the most conceited person in the whole world, Inger Johanne High-and-Mighty. Mother says so, too.”
Pooh! That fat Mrs. Wium who goes through the streets with her market-basket, and the neck of her dress unfastened! As if I cared the least bit for her. I wrote a note in reply immediately:
“Whether your mother likes me or not is for me a bagatelle.”
I really must ask if you don’t think that that was well said?
The bell rang, Mr. Bu came in from the window, assigned our new lesson and the class was dismissed.
Well, that was good. In this recess I must learn what I could about Olaf Kyrre, for I didn’t know the least speck about him. But there was no studying for me, I assure you, for the instant Mr. Bu shut the door, Antoinette came at me, angry as could be because I had called her mother a bagatelle, she said.
“It may easily be that your mother is a bagatelle,” said I. “But I never called her that.”
“Yes, you did,” said Antoinette.
“No, I didn’t,” said I.
We kept on disputing that way the whole recess. I held my “History of Norway” in my hand but didn’t get a chance to see a word in it.