"Yes, and then I heard a shout from someone down by the door; it was Meilby. You know, the photographer I used to teach English. He was rather like you, by the way, Vang--the same gentle sort of eyes...."
Augh! Egholm realised suddenly that he had said that once before to-day. He had got to the end of his repertoire. A sense of shame came over him, he cleared his throat, and cried in a forced voice:
"Hi, Anna! Vang says he'll have his money back if the performance doesn't begin very soon."
Vang grunted; that was the sort of thing he understood. But Fru Egholm shivered in fear.
"Yes, yes, in a minute--five minutes more! Hedvig, for Heaven's sake, look and see if it's nearly done?"
"Yes; it's peeling now," reported Hedvig, and her mother left the horseradish to go and taste the soup. _Herregud!_ it was as weak as ditchwater. She closed her eyes, and tasted once again, looking very much like a blinking hen herself. "Ditchwater, simply!"
"Hedvig!" She routed out a pocket-handkerchief, and untied a twenty-five _øre_ from one corner. "Run out and get a quarter of butter, there's a dear."
"Well, and what then?" she said sullenly to herself. "It's got to be used, and I'm not sorry I did it. Egholm always likes his things a little on the rich side, and now after he's been so angry...."
It was hard to please him anyway when he was in that mood. Who would have thought he could have turned so furious just for a little remark like that?... What was it now she had happened to say?
Her brain was puzzling to remember it as she bustled about the final preparations. She talked to herself in an undertone, weeping silently the while.
"Anna, what do you think you're doing out there?" cried Egholm.
Hedvig answered with a brief, sharp word, which her mother tried to cover with a "Sh!"
At the last moment she had hit upon a new and ingenious plan for saving her housewifely credit. The soup could be served up in the plates outside, and brought to table thus; the nasty dish thing could be used for the fowl itself. Fortunately, Vang might not know it was a developing tank at all.
Hedvig carried Vang's plate in, walking stiffly as a wooden doll, and biting her lips till they showed white. But Vang, with a single friendly tug at her pigtails, made her open her mouth at once.