“He’s going to bring it to you himself directly,” I said with great solemnity. “Meantime I am charged with an important message for which he begs your favourable consideration. He is in love with your niece....”
“Ach So!” he hissed with an animosity that made my assumed gravity change into the most genuine concern. What meant this tone? And I hurried on.
“He wishes, with your consent of course, to ask her to marry him at once--before you leave here, that is. He would speak to the Consul.”
Hermann sat down and smoked violently. Five minutes passed in that furious meditation, and then, taking the long pipe out of his mouth, he burst into a hot diatribe against Falk--against his cupidity, his stupidity (a fellow that can hardly be got to say “yes” or “no” to the simplest question)--against his outrageous treatment of the shipping in port (because he saw they were at his mercy)--and against his manner of walking, which to his (Hermann’s) mind showed a conceit positively unbearable. The damage to the old Diana was not forgotten, of course, and there was nothing of any nature said or done by Falk (even to the last offer of refreshment in the hotel) that did not seem to have been a cause of offence. “Had the cheek” to drag him (Hermann) into that coffee-room; as though a drink from him could make up for forty-seven dollars and fifty cents of damage in the cost of wood alone--not counting two days’ work for the carpenter. Of course he would not stand in the girl’s way. He was going home to Germany. There were plenty of poor girls walking about in Germany.
“He’s very much in love,” was all I found to say.
“Yes,” he cried. “And it is time too after making himself and me talked about ashore the last voyage I was here, and then now again; coming on board every evening unsettling the girl’s mind, and saying nothing. What sort of conduct is that?”
The seven thousand dollars the fellow was always talking about did not, in his opinion, justify such behaviour. Moreover, nobody had seen them. He (Hermann) seriously doubted if there were seven thousand cents, and the tug, no doubt, was mortgaged up to the top of the funnel to the firm of Siegers. But let that pass. He wouldn’t stand in the girl’s way. Her head was so turned that she had become no good to them of late. Quite unable even to put the children to bed without her aunt. It was bad for the children; they got unruly; and yesterday he actually had to give Gustav a thrashing.