"Take it out!" shouts the father, purple with rage. He thinks the sons have written to his wife, and, since they don't care to show the letter, of course there is something mean about him in it.
The boys do not stir, and father raises his hand to strike Lennart, who is sitting before the table drawer.
"Don't touch him!" cries Hugo. "We were only talking over something which Lennart has invented."
Hugo pushes Lennart aside, opens the drawer, and pulls out the paper, which is scrawled full of airships of the most extraordinary shapes. "Last night Lennart thought out a new kind of sail for his airship. It was of this we were speaking."
Father wouldn't believe him. He bends over, searches in the drawer, but finds only sheets of paper covered with drawings of balloons, parachutes, flying-machines, and everything else appertaining to air-sailing.
To the great surprise of the boys, father does not cast this aside at once, nor does he laugh at their attempts, but examines closely sheet after sheet. As a matter of fact, father, too, has a little leaning toward mechanics, and was interested in things of this sort in days gone by, when his brain was still good for something. Soon he begins to ask questions as to the meaning of one thing and another, and inasmuch as his words betray that he is deeply interested and understands what he sees, Lennart fights his bashfulness, and answers him, hesitatingly at first and then more willingly.
Soon father and boys are absorbed in a profound discussion about airships and air-sailing. After they are fairly well started, the boys chatter unreservedly and give father a share in their plans and dreams of greatness. And while the father comprehends, of course, that the boys cannot fly very far with the airship which they have constructed, he is very much impressed. His little sons talk of aluminum motors, aeroplanes, and balancers, as though they were the simplest things in the world. He had thought them regular blockheads because they didn't get on very fast at school. Now, all at once, he believes they are a pair of little scientists.
The high-soaring thoughts and aspirations father understands better than anything else; he cognizes them. He himself has dreamed in the same way, and he has no desire to laugh at such dreams.
Father doesn't go out again that morning, but sits and chats with the boys until it is time to fetch the food for dinner and set the table. And at that meal father and the boys are real good friends, to their great and mutual astonishment.