"Did the five crowns blow away?" piped Karsten.
"Was it, perhaps, the only one you had?" asked the mate. Ugh! how horrid he was. Storekeeper Andersen and Mrs. Tellefsen and the mate laughed as hard as they could. Karsten pulled at my waterproof.
"You're a good one! Now they will put us ashore because we haven't any money. You always do something like that!"
"Are you going to put us ashore?" I asked.
"Oh, no," said the mate. "I will go up to your father's office and get the money some time. That's all right."
Pshaw! that would be worse than anything else. Father would be raving. He always says I lose everything.
"You'll catch it from Father," whispered Karsten.
Oh, what should I do! What should I do! Karsten and Mr. Singdahlsen clambered up on some rigging away aft to get sight of the five-crown note. Mr. Singdahlsen peered through the hollow of his hand and both he and Karsten insisted that they saw it. But that couldn't help us any.
Oh! how disgusting everything had become all at once. The visit at Uncle's and Aunt's would be horrid, too. To go there alone in this way, and have to talk alone with Uncle, a minister, and all the other grown-up people at the rectory—it would be disgustingly tiresome. There was nothing that was any fun in the whole world. It would be disgusting to go home again; for Father would be so dreadfully angry—and it was most disgusting of all to be here on the steamboat where everybody laughed at me.
And all on account of an old rag of a five-crown bill which had blown away. Besides, I had told a lie and said I was twelve years old. Oh-oh-oh! how sad everything was!