Part 48 (2/2)

During the first few days Doffen had not seen much of the Admiral, who had hardly looked in at the office at all. He wanted to get some idea of the ”new slave's” manner and behaviour before he sat down.

On the day after the performance, the Admiral walked in and took his seat. Silence for a few minutes.

At last Doffen thought he ought to say something, and observed with the utmost coolness:

”Your daughter danced very nicely last night.”

”H'm.” The Admiral only grunted, and looked out of the window. Doffen imagined he had not heard.

”I was saying, Admiral, your daughter gave a deuced fine performance last night.” Doffen raised his voice a little, thinking the Admiral must be hard of hearing.

”And what the devil's that got to do with you?” Doffen slammed down the lid of his desk with a bang.

”To do with me? Why, I paid for my ticket, anyway.”

”I didn't ask her to dance for you, my lad, and devil take me but it shall be the last time.”

”What's that to do with me?” retorted Doffen coldly.

The Admiral began to feel in his element; here at last was a man who could stand up to him.

”Can't you see she's like a young palm? Haven't you got a spice of feeling in you, man?”

”That's my business, Admiral.”

The Admiral stopped short. He was on the point of bringing out his own favourite retort: ”Mind your own business,” and here was this fellow taking the very words out of his mouth. He went out of the room without a word.

Several times after that the Admiral launched his attacks at the new clerk, but invariably got as good as he gave. More than that, Doffen would even take the offensive himself.

”What do you think you're doing with these two hulks of yours, Admiral, eh?”

”Hulks?”

”Yes, these two old wooden arks. The skippers go floundering about like hunted c.o.c.kroaches at sea, and the s.h.i.+ps themselves go pottering from pillar to post; it's high time you got some system into the business.”

”You mind your own business, please,” said the Admiral, rapping on the desk. But at that the other let himself go in his barbarous dialect, like a gramophone:

”It is my business, and as long as I'm stuck here on this spindle-shanked contrivance of a stool I'll say what I think. Take me for a dumb beast, do you? Not me! It'll take more than you know to stop me talking. We're used to rough weather where I come from.”

And Doffen went on in the same strain long after the Admiral had got out of the room. The Admiral himself, however, listened with delight from the other side of the door, as Doffen thumped his desk again and again, still in the full torrent of speech. It was worth while going to the office now. No more sitting glowering at a servile, stooping-shouldered little sc.r.a.p of a man, who scribbled away for dear life and shrank in terror every time he entered. Now he would generally find the room in a thick haze of tobacco smoke so that he himself could scarcely breathe. Doffen's pipe was rarely out of his mouth. Several times the Admiral had invited him, in well-chosen words, to take his beastly pipe to a hotter place, but only to be met with the retort that it might be as well, seeing there was never a box of matches here when a man wanted a light. The Admiral came more and more often to the office now. Here at least he could be sure of getting a fair go at any time, for Doffen was always open for a game.

After a while a tone of jovial roughness grew up between the two of them, and authority was relegated to the background, exactly as Doffen wished.

Altogether there was every prospect of an idyllic understanding between the two parties, until one day Doffen fell in love, over head and ears in love beyond recall.

The Princess had captivated him completely. If she chanced to come into the office for a stamp, or to deliver a letter, his heart would start hammering like a riveting machine.

His brain was so confused he hardly knew what he was doing. He would lie awake at nights in a torment of hatred against the Endresen and Karsten boys, who were rivals for her favour. And, after all, who was better fitted than he? Had he not got the Admiral's papers into proper order? Had he not managed to knock the old porpoise himself into shape, till he was grown docile and tractable as a tame rabbit?

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