There would be an end of poverty then!

The windows of heaven should be opened, and the flood pour in—oh, in no time. He knew it, he felt sure of it. But the belly was not to be put off, not for so much as a day. And his hands were impatient too; there was a nervous thrill at the roots of the nails, or a deadly chill in the fingers from sheer inactivity. Every morning he raced about after the situations vacant in the papers, but always in vain. With Meilby’s apparatus, he could make money—ay, though his studio had no roof but the February sky.

He grew quite genial towards his pupil, and praised him more than was properly his due. When they had finished with their brainwork for the evening, he said anxiously:

“But, promise me you don’t go selling them without letting me know.”

Meilby would bear it in mind.

“Yes, but suppose you forgot?”

“Why, we’ll be none the less friends for that,” said Meilby, with an amiable smile.

“You’ll get nothing out of him, you see,” said Anna when he had gone. “It’ll be just the same with him as with young Karlsen, when he came to learn English, too. Huh! It was you that learned something that time, if you ask me.”

“He’s an artful one,” said Egholm, with a laugh. “He tricked the doctor when he went to be examined. But, after all—what’s a trifle like that when a man stands firm on the rock of truth?”

“Do you think Meilby does? You think it’s for any good he’s going running off to America like that?”

Egholm, law-abiding man, paled at the thought, but said, with an attempt at liveliness:

“I’ll get him to stay, then.”

“But he won’t pay you at all unless he goes.”

That, again, was true—painfully true. No ... anyhow, Egholm would have nothing to do with any doubtful affairs. Not for any price. Better let Meilby go his own gait as soon as he pleased.

But even as he formed the thought, he seemed to feel the milled edges of the screws that set the camera between his fingers, and with a sigh he breathed the resolution from him once more.

One morning, a few days later, Egholm came back from his usual round.

“No luck, I suppose?”

“No, no, no,” he snarled, flinging off his hat. Then he took down the Bible.

What could have happened to make his hands shake like that?

A few minutes later came the explanation.

“I went after a job—Hansen and Tvede, it was—as errand boy. Told them they could have me a full day’s work just for my food. But they laughed at me. Oh, and there was a beast of a fellow in riding-boots—the manager, perhaps. You should have seen his face.”

“Perhaps he meant it wasn’t the sort of thing they could offer you. Something better,” hinted Fru Egholm.

He made no answer, but strove to calm his indignation by strenuous attention to the Bible. If that didn’t help him, why, then.... But he was nearly through with it now—it was the Epistle to the Hebrews.

The letters danced and crept like ants before his eyes.

“And verily they that are of the sons of Levi, who receive the office of the priesthood, have a commandment to take tithes of the people according to the law, that is, of their brethren....”

“Ha ha! Riding-boots and all! No, ’twasn’t that he meant, giving me something better. The beast! I shan’t forget him!”

“For the priesthood being changed, there is made of necessity a change also of the law....”

“‘I see from the paper you’re wanting an errand boy’—that’s what I said to him. And asked if I would do. And I crushed my hat in my hands and stood up. Then, of course, what he ought to have said was, ‘What, you looking for a place as errand boy? No, no. Couldn’t think of it. I’ll take you on in the office, as a clerk. You shall be cashier. I’ve taken a fancy to you, the way you stand there modestly as could be.’ But he didn’t say that, not a word of it. Good Lord, no! The worst of it was, he saw through me. He winked at me!”