“Fiskman,” she cries, “vill du have otto skillings?” (will you have eight skillings?)
No, the fiskman won’t have that; it is not enough, so he makes no reply, but pretends to be washing his boat.
“Fiskman, fiskman, vill du have ni?” (will you have nine?)
Still no reply. The fisherman turns his back on the market, gazes out to sea, and begins to whistle.
At this the girl becomes furious. She whirls her umbrella in the air desperately. If that umbrella were only a foot longer the fiskman’s head would certainly feel its weight!
Presently the girl forces herself to become calm and deeply earnest; she has made up her mind to make a liberal offer.
“Fiskman, vill du have ti (ten) skillings?”
The fiskman, who wears a red nightcap, with a tall hat on the top of it, takes off his head-gear, exposes his bald pate to view, and wipes it with a fishy cotton handkerchief; but he takes no notice whatever of the girl, who now becomes mad—that is to say, she stamps, glares, shakes her pretty little fist at the hard-hearted man, and gasps.
Suddenly she becomes reckless, and makes a wild offer of “tolve (twelve) skillings.”
Ha! the mark is hit at last! The fiskman can hold out no longer. Without saying a word, he turns quietly round and hands up the fish. The girl, without a word, stoops down and pays for them, and then goes off in triumph, for her energy has been successful; she has got the fish a little cheaper than she had expected.