“Pelle, Pelle!” she said, in desperation. “They’ve counted on stopping here and eating until the evening. And I haven’t a scrap in the house. What’s to be done?”
“Tell them how it is, of course!”
“I can’t! And they’ve had nothing to eat to-day—can’t you see by looking at them?” She burst into tears.
“Now, now, let me see to the whole thing!” he said consolingly. “But what are you going to give us with our coffee?”
“I don’t know! I have nothing but black bread and a little butter.”
“Lord, what a little donkey!” he said, smiling, and he took her face between his hands. “And you stand there lamenting! Just you be cutting the bread-and-butter!”
Ellen set to work hesitatingly. But before she appeared with the refreshments they heard her bang the front door and go running down the steps. After a time she returned. “Oh, Lord! Now the baker has sold out of white bread,” she said, “so you must just have black bread-and-butter with your coffee.”
“But that’s capital,” they cried. “Black bread always goes best with coffee. Only it’s a shame we are giving you so much trouble!”
“Look here,” said Pelle, at last. “It may please you to play hide-and- seek with one another, but it doesn’t me—I am going to speak my mind. With us things are bad, and it can’t be any better with you. Now how is it, really, with the old folks?”
“They are struggling along,” said Otto. “They always have credit, and I think they have a little put by as well.”