You've been to Christiania, I hear.
And what are you busy with now?"
They sat down opposite each other. Peer explained, calmly and with
confidence.
"And what does the thing amount to?" asked Uthoug, his face coming out
of the shadow and looking at Peer in the full light.
"Two million four hundred thousand."
The old man laid his hairy hands on the desk and rose to his feet,
staring at the other and breathing deeply. The sum half-stunned him.
Beside it he himself and his work seemed like dust in the balance. Where
were all his plans and achievements now, his greatness, his position,
his authority in the town? Compared with amounts like this, what were
the paltry sums he had been used to handle?
"I--I didn't quite catch--" he stammered. "Did you say two millions?"
"Yes. I daresay it seems a trifle to you," said Peer. "Indeed, I've
handled contracts myself that ran to fifty million francs."
"What? How much did you say?" Uthoug began to move restlessly about the
room. He clutched his hair, and gazed at Peer as if doubting whether he
was quite sober.
At the same time he felt it would never do to let himself be so easily
thrown off his balance. He tried to pull himself together.
"And what do you make out of it?" he asked.
"A couple of hundred thousand, I hope."
"Oh!" A profit on this scale again rather startled the old man. No, he
was nothing; he never had been anything in this world!
"How do you know that you will make so much?"
"I've calculated it all out.
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