Hauke looked at him stubbornly.
"Don't you hear me? I say, you might have drowned!"
"Yes," said Hauke, "but I'm not drowned!"
"No," the old man answered after a while and looked into his face absently--"not this time."
"But," Hauke returned, "our dikes aren't worth anything."
"What's that, boy?"
"The dikes, I say."
"What about the dikes?"
"They're no good, father," replied Hauke.
The old man laughed in his face. "What's the matter with you, boy? I suppose you are the prodigy from Lübeck."