"Yes, the world does not move in verse! As Lieutenant Bausback said when he paid his debts with old Mother Stenberg; she was exactly three and a half times as old as he when they were married."
"She has always been pliable—we may hope that she is amenable to a word from her parents. I will write and represent to her the prospects."
"The prospects! Don't meddle with that, Ma! Marriages don't grow on trees. Or what kind of a match do you think Thinka can make up here? When I am old and retired on a pension, it is a nice lookout with all our daughters on our hands! Don't let us be mad with pride, Ma, stark mad! That runs in your blood and that of all the Zittows."
Ma's lips stiffened a little and her eyes looked keenly black; but it was over in a moment. "I think that after all we might economize on pork and butter here in the house; it is not half so salt as it is used in many places for servants, and then, when the pigs—only the hams, I mean—can go with the load to the city, then we can very likely find some way to get the money in again. Otherwise, I should be entirely disheartened. But if we are to send the money, I think you ought to send it to the post-office at once, Jäger. They ought not to see anything but that you pay cash down."
The captain rose and puffed. "Ten and five are fifteen—and three are eighteen." He counted the money out of a drawer in his desk. "We shall never see the money again. Where are the scissors, the scissors, I say?"
He began to cut the envelope for the money letter out of an old gray wrapper of an official letter, which he turned.
"Your coat and comforter are lying here, by the stove," said Ma, when she came in again.
"There. Put the sealing-wax and seal in the inside pocket, so that I shall not forget them; otherwise I must pay for sealing."
It was as if the captain's bad humor had been swept away when he came back hastily from the post-office. He had found a letter from Inger-Johanna, and immediately began to peep into it; but it became too dark.
His coat was off in a trice, and, with his hat still on, he began eagerly to read by the newly lighted candle.