"If you have a sweetheart, you must be true to her."
"Listen, child," she says. "You're a very naughty boy. If you have given Dir--Dir----"
"Well, that's an extraordinary name! But, if you have given her your word, you must keep it till you die. Else you'll never, never be happy."
My little boy understands not a word and answers not a word. Erna begins to cry at the prospect that this good match may not come off. But I bend down over the baluster and raise my hat:
"I beg your pardon, Fröken. Was it not you who jilted Hr. Petersen? . . ."
She packs up her chlorosis and disappears with Erna, mumbling something about like father, like son, and goodness knows what.
Presently, my little boy comes up to me and stands and hangs about.
"Where has Erna gone to?" I ask my little boy.
"She mustn't go out," he says, dejectedly.
He puts his hands in his pockets and looks straight before him.
"Father," he says, "can't you have two sweethearts?"
The question comes quite unexpectedly and, at the moment, I don't know what to answer.
"Well?" says the mother of my little boy, amiably, and looks up from her newspaper.
And I pull my waistcoat down and my collar up:
"Yes," I say, firmly. "You can. But it is wrong. It leads to more fuss and unpleasantness than you can possibly conceive."
"Are you so fond of Erna?" asks our mother.
"Then the thing is settled," I say. "We'll write to Dirty and give her notice. There's nothing else to be done. I will write now and you can give the letter yourself to the postman, when he comes this afternoon. If you take my advice, you will make her a present of your ball. Then she will not be so much upset."
"She can have my gold-fish too, if she likes," says the boy.
"Excellent, excellent. We will give her the gold-fish. Then she will really have nothing in the world to complain of."
My little boy goes away. But, presently, he returns:
"Father, have you written the letter to Dirty?"
"Not yet, my boy. There is time enough. I sha'n't forget it."
"Perhaps we had better wait with the letter till tomorrow," I say. "Or perhaps it would be best if we talked to Dirty ourselves, when we get back to town."
We both ponder over the matter and really don't know what to do.
Then my eyes surprise an indescribable smile on our mother's face. All a woman's incapacity to understand man's honesty is contained within that smile and I resent it greatly: