“Who was it came in just now?” asks the boy.
“I don't know. Was there any one in here?”
“I saw some one going...”
XXXI
After a couple of days, I set myself down calmly and loftily to write to Falkenberg. I had a bit of a saw thing I'd left there at Øvrebø, I wrote; it might be a useful thing for owners of timber lands some day, and I proposed to come along and fetch it away shortly. Please keep an eye on it and see it doesn't get damaged.
Yes, I wrote in that gentle style. That was the most dignified way. And since Falkenberg, of course, would mention it in the kitchen, and perhaps show the letter round, it had to be delicacy itself. But it was not all delicacy and nothing else; I fixed a definite date, to make it serious: I will come for the machine on Monday, 11th December.
I thought to myself: there, that's clear and sound; if the machine's not there that Monday, why, then, something will happen.
I took the letter to the post myself, and stuck a strip of stamps across the envelope as before....