"Do you call it waste, Helga?"
"Not for everybody--not for a man like Magnus, for example--but for you, yes," said Helga, and then, with irresistible drollery, she mimicked the manners of Parliament, with its "Mr. Speaker, permit me to rise to a point of order," and "Will the honorable and learned member explain," and all the other inanities of a legislative assembly in a little country.
Oscar laughed until tears, (from more springs than one) began to roll down his cheeks, and then he said--
"What an actress you would make, Helga! But principles, my dear girl, principles are the soul of politics, and if a man can guide his country in the higher paths, he can afford to forget the plains--don't you think so, Thora?"
And Thora, who had been feeling dizzy and faint, answered in a helpless way, "Yes, Oscar. But I forgot to tell you that father wished to see you on business."
"Business!" cried Helga. "That, too!"
"Then you object to business also?" asked Oscar.
"For you--certainly, because you are not fit for it," said Helga. "And if you go into business you'll be like a man who has married the wrong woman. She may be an excellent, thrifty soul, quite suitable to somebody else, but she was never meant for him."
"There's something in that, though it's wonderful how you know it," said Oscar. "I'm about the silliest beggar at a bargain that ever breathed out of an oyster shell."
"Of course you are, Oscar--you must be. Now, if Magnus had gone into business he might have got something out of it. But you--what in the world do you expect to get?"