Then came another letter; he was
expecting something to turn up very shortly, a first-rate post; but
meantime, he could not live on nothing at all, and when they sent him
a hundred-_Krone_ note from home, he wrote back to say it was just
enough to pay off some small debts he had.... "H'm," said Isak. "But
we've these stoneworker folk to pay, and a deal of things ... write
and ask if he wouldn't rather come back here and lend a hand."
And Inger wrote, but Eleseus did not care about coming home again; no,
no sense in making another journey all to no purpose; he would rather
starve.
Well, perhaps there was no first-rate post vacant just then in the
city, and Eleseus, perhaps, was not as sharp as a razor in pushing his
way. Heaven knows--perhaps he wasn't over clever at his work either.
Write? ay, he could write well enough, and quick and hard-working
maybe, but there might be something lacking for all that. And if so,
what was to become of him?
When he arrived from home with his two hundred _Kroner_, the city was
waiting for him with old accounts outstanding, and when those were
paid, well, he had to get a proper walking-stick, and not the remains
of an umbrella.
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