The clerk says that nothing is any trouble to Gjert." Something in this observation must have struck discordantly upon her husband's ear, for he changed colour and replied shortly after, somewhat sarcastically-- "It's my opinion that Gjert is not too good for his father's station, and that we are not going to make interest with anybody to hoist him up into the company of his betters, as they call themselves." Gjert's previous animation had been very much heightened by the picture which such a glittering prospect presented to his fancy, and he cried now, without taking warning by his father's changed tone-- "Mother was saying, though, the other day, that if I were to be a cadet I should cut a better figure in the world than as an ordinary common sailor." It was as if a match had been thrown into a gunpowder-magazine.

His father's hard face flushed up wildly, and he threw over at his wife a look of inexpressible, cold scorn.

Turning savagely away, he said in a cutting tone, that seemed to go through her-- "Do you also despise your father's station, my boy ?" When Gjert blundered out then in his eagerness-- "Frederick Beck is going to be a cadet," it was followed simply by-- "Come here, Gjert!"-- and he received a blow that sent him staggering against the table.

A second was about to follow, when his father happened to look up at his wife.

She had sprung a couple of steps forward, as if to take Gjert from him, and was standing now before him with crimson face and flashing eyes, and with a bearing that made him, at all events, lower his hand.