“No,” she replied in a low voice.
“It’s so strange to us old fogies, Karen, that the worse people are themselves, the more they feel called upon to make others better. Can you tell me what he has to say to those vagabonds—he, the man who has cheated them out of so much pay?”
She did not reply, but sighed.
“And those ‘working men’—yes. They’re amusing too. You may cheat them as much as you like, if only you provide them lectures to listen to. Never mind food and clothes, if only they can have bits of paper to go about with and wave. Yes, it is strange in these days.”
“You don’t think of going to America then, father?”
“No, not if he pays me back the last ten thousand krones; for he said he wanted them only for a fortnight.” The old man laughed again.
“You can be quite sure he said it in good faith, father.”
“Good faith! Yes, of course! And this good faith is now driving us out of house and home. That was good faith indeed!”
Fru Wangen again closed her lips and kept silence.
The old man passed his hand across his mouth.