t the merchant's house there was a large party of children—rich people's children and great people's children. The merchant was a man of good standing in society, and a learned man. He had taken, in his youth, a college examination. He had been kept to his studies by his worthy father, who had not gone very deep into learning himself, but was honest and active. He had made money, and the merchant had increased the fortune left to him. He had intellect, and heart too; but less was said of these good qualities than of his money.
There visited at his house several distinguished persons, both people of birth, as it is called, and people of talents, as it is called—people who came under both of these heads, and people who came under neither of these heads. The meeting now in question was a children's party, where there was childish talk; and children generally speak like parrots.
There was one little girl so excessively proud. She had been flattered into her foolish pride by the servants, not by her parents—they were too sensible to have done that. Her father was Kammerjunker[6] and she thought this was monstrously grand.
[6] A title at court.
"I am a court child," she said.
She might as well have been a cellar child, as far as she was herself concerned; and she informed the other children that she was "born" (well born, she meant); that when people were not "born," they could never be anybody; and that, however much they might read, however clever and industrious they might be, if they were not "born" they could never become great.
"And those whose names end in 'sen,'" she continued, "are all low people, and can never be of any consequence in the world. Ladies and gentlemen would put their hands on their sides, and keep them at a distance, these 'sen—sens!'" And she threw herself into the attitude she had described, and stuck her pretty little arms akimbo, to show how people of her grade would carry themselves in the presence of such common creatures. She really looked very pretty.
But the merchant's little daughter became extremely angry. Her father was called "Madsen," and that name, she knew, ended in "sen;" so she said, as proudly as she could,—
"But my father can buy hundreds of rix dollars' worth of sugar-plums, and think nothing of it. Can your father do that?"
"That's all very well," said the little daughter of a popular journalist; "but my father can put both of your fathers and all 'fathers' into the newspaper. Every one is afraid of him, my mother says; for it is my father who rules everything through the newspaper." And the little girl tossed her head and strutted about as if she thought herself a princess.