No More Learning

After his departure it
was discovered that he had been playing tricks with the cash-box of
the firm, of which his widowed mother had become the head. Karsten,
now Consul, Bernick had just come home from Paris. He became engaged
to Betty Tonnesen, now his wife, but when he entered her aunt's room,
with the girl on his arm, to announce his betrothal, Lona Hessel rose
from her chair and violently boxed his ear. Then she packed her box,
and went off to America. Little had been heard of Lona, except that
she had in America sung in taverns, and had given lectures, and had
written a most sensational book.


ACT II

SCENE. --_The same garden-room. _ MRS. BERNICK. AUNE _enters and greets_
CONSUL BERNICK.

BERNICK: I am not at all pleased, Aune, with the way
things are going on in the yard. The repairs are slow.
The _Palm Tree_ should long since have been at sea.
That American ship, the _Indian Girl_, has been lying here
five weeks. You do not know how to use the new machines,
or else you will not use them.
AUNE: Consul, the _Palm Tree_ can go to sea in two
days, but the _Indian Girl_ is as rotten as matchwood in
the bottom planking. Now, I am getting on for sixty,
and I cannot take to new ways. I am afraid for the
many folk whom the machinery will deprive of a livelihood.

BERNICK: I did not send for you to argue. Listen
now. The _Indian Girl_ must be got ready to sail in two
days, at the same time as our own ship. There are reasons
for this decision. The carping newspaper critics
are pretending that we are giving all our attention to the
_Palm Tree_. If you will not do what I order, I must
look for somebody who will.

AUNE: You are asking impossibilities, consul. But
surely you cannot think of dismissing me, whose father
and grandfather worked here all their lives before me.
Do you know what is meant by the dismissal of an old
workman?

BERNICK: You are a stubborn fellow, Aune. You
oppose me from perversity. I am sorry indeed if we
must part, Aune.

AUNE: We will not part, consul.