The next morning, Halfdan was released from the Police Station, having
first been fined five dollars for vagrancy. All his money, with the
exception of a few pounds which he had exchanged in Liverpool, he
had lost with his valise, and he had to his knowledge not a single
acquaintance in the city or on the whole continent. In order to increase
his capital he bought some fifty “Tribunes,” but, as it was already
late in the day, he hardly succeeded in selling a single copy. The next
morning, he once more stationed himself on the corner of Murray street
and Broadway, hoping in his innocence to dispose of the papers he
had still on hand from the previous day, and actually did find a few
customers among the people who were jumping in and out of the omnibuses
that passed up and down the great thoroughfare. To his surprise,
however, one of these gentlemen returned to him with a very wrathful
countenance, shook his fist at him, and vociferated with excited
gestures something which to Halfdan’s ears had a very unintelligible
sound. He made a vain effort to defend himself; the situation appeared
so utterly incomprehensible to him, and in his dumb helplessness he
looked pitiful enough to move the heart of a stone. No English phrase
suggested itself to him, only a few Norse interjections rose to his
lips. The man’s anger suddenly abated; he picked up the paper which
he had thrown on the sidewalk, and stood for a while regarding Halfdan
curiously.
“Are you a Norwegian?” he asked.
“Yes, I came from Norway yesterday.”
“What’s your name?”
“Halfdan Bjerk.”
“Halfdan Bjerk! My stars! Who would have thought of meeting you here!
You do not recognize me, I suppose.”
Halfdan declared with a timid tremor in his voice that he could not at
the moment recall his features.
“No, I imagine I must have changed a good deal since you saw me,” said
the man, suddenly dropping into Norwegian. “I am Gustav Olson, I used to
live in the same house with you once, but that is long ago now.”
Gustav Olson--to be sure, he was the porter’s son in the house,
where his mother had once during his childhood, taken a flat. He well
remembered having clandestinely traded jack-knives and buttons with him,
in spite of the frequent warnings he had received to have nothing to
do with him; for Gustav, with his broad freckled face and red hair, was
looked upon by the genteel inhabitants of the upper flats as rather a
disreputable character. He had once whipped the son of a colonel who
had been impudent to him, and thrown a snow-ball at the head of a
new-fledged lieutenant, which offenses he had duly expiated at a house
of correction. Since that time he had vanished from Halfdan’s horizon.
He had still the same broad freckled face, now covered with a lusty
growth of coarse red beard, the same rebellious head of hair, which
refused to yield to the subduing influences of the comb, the same
plebeian hands and feet, and uncouth clumsiness of form. But his linen
was irreproachable, and a certain dash in his manner, and the
loud fashionableness of his attire, gave unmistakable evidences of
prosperity.
“Come, Bjerk,” said he in a tone of good-fellowship, which was not
without its sting to the idealistic republican, “you must take up a
better business than selling yesterday’s `Tribune.’ That won’t pay here,
you know. Come along to our office and I will see if something can’t be
done for you.”
“But I should be sorry to give you trouble,” stammered Halfdan, whose
native pride, even in his present wretchedness, protested against
accepting a favor from one whom he had been wont to regard as his
inferior.
“Nonsense, my boy. Hurry up, I haven’t much time to spare. The office
is only two blocks from here. You don’t look as if you could afford to
throw away a friendly offer.”
The last words suddenly roused Halfdan from his apathy; for he felt
that they were true. A drowning man cannot afford to make nice
distinctions--cannot afford to ask whether the helping hand that is
extended to him be that of an equal or an inferior. So he swallowed
his humiliation and threaded his way through the bewildering turmoil of
Broadway, by the side of his officious friend.
They entered a large, elegantly furnished office, where clerks with
sleek and severely apathetic countenances stood scribbling at their
desks.
“You will have to amuse yourself as best you can,” said Olson. “Mr. Van
Kirk will be here in twenty minutes. I haven’t time to entertain you.”
A dreary half hour passed. Then the door opened and a tall, handsome
man, with a full grayish beard, and a commanding presence, entered and
took his seat at a desk in a smaller adjoining office. He opened, with
great dispatch, a pile of letters which lay on the desk before him,
called out in a sharp, ringing tone for a clerk, who promptly appeared,
handed him half-a-dozen letters, accompanying each with a brief
direction, took some clean paper from a drawer and fell to writing.
There was something brisk, determined, and business-like in his manner,
which made it seem very hopeless to Halfdan to appear before him as a
petitioner. Presently Olson entered the private office, closing the door
behind him, and a few minutes later re-appeared and summoned Halfdan
into the chief’s presence.
“You are a Norwegian, I hear,” said the merchant, looking around over
his shoulder at the supplicant, with a preoccupied air. “You want work.
What can you do?”
What can you do? A fatal question. But here was clearly no opportunity
for mental debate. So, summoning all his courage, but feeling
nevertheless very faint, he answered:
“I have passed both examen artium and philosophicum, [2] and got my laud
clear in the former, but in the latter haud on the first point.”
Mr. Van Kirk wheeled round on his chair and faced the speaker:
“That is all Greek to me,” he said, in a severe tone. “Can you keep
accounts?”
“No. I am afraid not.”
Keeping accounts was not deemed a classical accomplishment in Norway. It
was only “trade-rats” who troubled themselves about such gross things,
and if our Norseman had not been too absorbed with the problem of his
destiny, he would have been justly indignant at having such a question
put to him.
“Then you don’t know book-keeping?”
“I think not. I never tried it.”
“Then you may be sure you don’t know it. But you must certainly have
tried your hand at something. Is there nothing you can think of which
might help you to get a living?”
“I can play the piano--and--and the violin.”
“Very well, then. You may come this afternoon to my house. Mr. Olson
will tell you the address. I will give you a note to Mrs. Van Kirk.
Perhaps she will engage you as a music teacher for the children. Good
morning.”