This was Egholm’s chef-d’œuvre; he had told the story of it a hundred times. And by frequent repetition, it had gained a certain style, as he omitted more and more of the commonplace. He told of his bold advertisements—a new departure altogether—his growing staff of assistants, the eagerness of the public to come first, and the tearful envy of his competitors. And when, in the flight of his telling, he reached its highest point, where he really was the greatest photographer in the place—he stopped. He felt he must remain there on those heights, above the clouds; he wished his hearers always to remember him as there and so. The miserable descent he passed over, and began as a matter of course with his appointment on the railways, as station assistant, at a wretched rate of pay.
Vang did not seem to miss the intervening chapters; he sat wallowing in the delicious smell of cooking that came through from the kitchen.
Egholm told of his railway period, how he had rushed about the country, now at some desolate little station on the Jutland moors, now in big places like Odense or Frederikshavn. He sighed, and passed over the conflicts with authority, and his dismissal. No, he would not think of those things now; not a thought. He turned abruptly to the annals of the Brethren of St. John. True, there was much that was disappointing about his relations with that community, but, after all, there had been something grand in its way about the final meeting. Had he not stood there alone, and told them the truth, in such a wise that even the fellow from Copenhagen had polished his glasses and shaken in his shoes, finding nothing to say in return? Had he not gained the victory? They had thrown him out—but was not that in itself sufficient evidence that his words were true, and had pierced them accordingly?
“Yes, and then I heard a shout from someone down by the door; it was Meilby. You know, the photographer I used to teach English. He was rather like you, by the way, Vang—the same gentle sort of eyes....”
Augh! Egholm realised suddenly that he had said that once before to-day. He had got to the end of his repertoire. A sense of shame came over him, he cleared his throat, and cried in a forced voice:
“Hi, Anna! Vang says he’ll have his money back if the performance doesn’t begin very soon.”
Vang grunted; that was the sort of thing he understood. But Fru Egholm shivered in fear.
“Yes, yes, in a minute—five minutes more! Hedvig, for Heaven’s sake, look and see if it’s nearly done?”
“Yes; it’s peeling now,” reported Hedvig, and her mother left the horseradish to go and taste the soup. Herregud! it was as weak as ditchwater. She closed her eyes, and tasted once again, looking very much like a blinking hen herself. “Ditchwater, simply!”