“My daughter she had one with nickel handles to pull out,” said Madam Hermansen, poking at it. “And walnut’s the nicest you can have, so the joiner man said.”
“Yes, that’s what I say. But what do you think Egholm said? ‘Rare specimens,’ he said—‘solid mahogany!’ Ugh! Well, do you know what I did? I set to work then and there and made up something to cover the worst of it. Those butterflies for the rocking-chair, and the cloth with the stars on for the chest of drawers, and paper roses to put in by the mirror. It took me the whole of a night, but I wouldn’t have grudged it, if I’d only got a thimbleful of thanks for my pains. And now, just listen, and I’ll tell you the thanks I got. One day the Sanitary Inspector came round to have a look at the sink. He’d brought a whole crowd with him—it was a commission or something, with the mayor and the doctor and the vet, and so on. Then one of them gets it into his head he’d like to have a look round the place. Egholm, of course, waves his hand and says, ‘With pleasure.’ And never a thought in his head of anything the matter.”
Madam Hermansen nodded sympathetically.
“Well, they came in through the kitchen and stood there poking about at the sink for a bit, and while they’re at it, Egholm comes in here. And then—what do you say to this?—he rushes round the room and pulls it all off. As true as I’m here; the butterflies and the paper flowers, and the toilet cover and all. Threw the flowers under the table, and stuffed the rest in under his coat. Now, if that isn’t simply disgraceful....”
“And what did you say to him?” Madam Hermansen shook herself, giving out a perfume of leeks and celery from under her shawl.
“Not a word. I had to keep it all back, and bow and scrape to the gentlemen, with my heart like to bursting all the time. ‘We must take all that stuff out of the way when anyone comes,’ he says after. Oh, he’s that full of his fashionable notions, there’s no room for human feeling in his breast. And if there is one thing I can’t abide, it is that fashionable nonsense.”
“Well, now, I don’t know that it’s altogether put on, you know, with him, seeing he’s a man of good family, as you might say.”
“Good family—h’m. As to that....” Fru Egholm raised her eyebrows.
“Well, well, I don’t know, of course,” said Madam Hermansen, shifting heavily a little forward. “I thought he was a parson’s son, and his parents were dead?”