“Ay, so it is,” says Grindhusen at last. “Two years come next fourteenth of August since the last letter came. There was a smart photograph in, from Olea, it was, that lives in Dakota, as they call it. A mighty fine photograph it was, but I never got it sold. Eyah, but we'll manage somehow, please the Lord,” says Grindhusen, with a yawn. “What was I going to say now?... What is he paying for the work?”
“I don't know.”
But Grindhusen looks at me suspiciously, thinking it is only that I will not say.
“Ay, well, 'tis all the same to me,” he says. “I was only asking.”
To please him, I try to guess a wage. “I dare say he'll give me a couple of Kroner a day, or perhaps three, d'you think?”
“Ay, dare say you may,” he answers enviously. “Two Kroner's all I get, and I'm an old hand at the work.”
Then fancying, perhaps, I may go telling of his grumbling, he starts off in praise of Engineer Lassen, saying what a splendid fellow he is in every way. “He'll do what's fair by me, that I know. Trust him for that! Why, he's been as good as a father to me, and that's the truth!”
It sounds quaint, indeed, to hear Grindhusen, half his teeth gone with age, talking of the young engineer as a father. I felt pretty sure I could find out a good deal about my new employer from this quarter, but I did not ask.
“He didn't say anything about me coming down into town?” asked Grindhusen.
“No.”