And the kitchen table was a veritable map of stains.
"They cost something, those did," said Egholm. "That's my silver nitrate." And he seemed as proud as if he had paved the way for his wife's arrival with pieces of eight.
He helped to set the numerous bowls and glass plates aside, and murmured regretfully:
"Well, well, anyhow, you've had your way."
"I hope you can see now, at any rate. And now, for Heaven's sake, make haste and get that fowl done. I've asked Vang to supper."
"But, Egholm! You don't mean to say...." Fru Egholm almost screamed.
"Beginning again, are you?" he said threateningly. But at sight of her face, bruised and already colouring from his recent blows, he turned away.
"We must do something for him. He's been a help to me from the first day I came. And he's got a miserable home."
"We've neither knives nor forks--we haven't even plates." Fru Egholm dared not say too much just now, but hurried to unpack a box, that the contents might speak for her. There were a few cups without handles, five or six plates, some of them soup-plates, but no two alike. One had a pattern of flowers, another birds; a third was ornamented with a landscape. Two of the knives lacked handles, and nearly all the forks were one prong short.
Egholm was on the point of breaking out again, but suddenly he laughed.
"Oh, an elegant dinner service. Splendid! splendid!" And he danced about the floor.
"We haven't a single dish, or a tureen. And his father keeps a real hotel--we can't serve it up in the saucepan."
"Oh yes, you can. Vang and I, we're not the sort to stand on ceremony. Wait a minute, though--a dish ... I can let you have a dish."
He picked up a big white rinsing-dish from among his own equipment, fished up some plates that were lying in the bottom, and tipped the liquid into a bottle.
"There you are--real porcelain. Now the set's complete. But mind you wash it out well, or you'll send us all to kingdom come. And, for Heaven's sake, make haste. I've got to keep talking to him all the time, and you've no idea what a business that is."
Whereupon Egholm danced out of the doorway, leaving his wife, confused and helpless, with the dripping poison dish in her hands.
Hedvig sat in front of the stove, crumpling up newspapers and thrusting them in through the open door, to keep the fire from going out entirely.