I fell asleep again, and wakened at the sound of footsteps on the stairs. Before I had time to get properly to my feet, there was the Captain himself in the doorway.
“Don't get up,” he said kindly, and turned as if to go again. “Still, seeing you're awake, we might settle up. What do you say?”
I said it was as he pleased, and many thanks.
“I ought to tell you, though, both your friend and I thought you were going to take service at the vicarage, and so.... And now the weather's broken up, there's no doing more among the timber—and, besides, we've got down all there was to come. Well, now; I've settled with the other man. I don't know if you'd....”
I said I would be quite content with the same.
“H'm! Your friend and I agreed you ought to have more per day.”
Falkenberg had said no word of this to me; it sounded like the Captain's own idea.
“I agreed with him we should share alike,” said I.
“But you were sort of foreman; of course, you ought to have fifty øre per day extra.”
I saw my hesitation displeased him, and let him reckon it out as he pleased. When he gave me the money, I said it was more than I had reckoned with. The Captain answered: