"Well? Did you get it?"
He laughed, wiped his forehead, and drew a green-covered book from his
coat-pocket. "Here we are, my girl--there's fifty crowns a month for
three years. It's going to be a bit of a pinch, with fees and books, and
living and clothes into the bargain. But we'll do it. Father was one of
the right sort, I don't care what they say."
"But how did you manage it? What did the schoolmaster say?"
"'Do you suppose that you--you with your antecedents--could ever pass
into the Technical College?' he said. And I told him I HAD passed. 'Good
heavens! How could you possibly qualify?' and he shifted his glasses
down his nose. And then: 'Oh, no! it's no good coming here with tales of
that sort, my lad.' Well, then I showed him the certificate, and he got
much meeker. 'Really!' he said, and 'Dear me!' and all that. But I say,
Louise--there's another Holm entered for the autumn term."
"Peer, you don't mean--your half-brother?"
"And old Dressing-gown said it would never do--never! But I said it
seemed to me there must be room in the world for me as well, and I'd
like that bank book now, I said. 'You seem to fancy you have some legal
right to it,' he said, and got perfectly furious. Then I hinted that
I'd rather ask a lawyer about it and make sure, and at that he regularly
boiled with rage and waved his arms all about. But he gave in pretty
soon all the same--said he washed his hands of the whole thing.
'And besides,' he said, 'your name's Troen, you know--Peer Troen.
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