Page:The collected works of Henrik Ibsen (Volume 6).djvu/44

 Bastian.

[Thumps the table.] Ugh, father! if I only had certain people here!

Stensgård.

Your children, you say?

Monsen.

Yes; take Bastian, for example. Perhaps I haven't given him a good education?

Heire.

A threefold education! First for the University; then for painting; and then for—what is it?—it's a civil engineer he is now, isn't it?

Bastian.

Yes, that I am, by the Lord!

Monsen.

Yes, that he is; I can produce his bills and his certificates to prove it! But who gets the town business? Who has got the local road-making—especially these last two years? Foreigners, or at any rate strangers—in short, people no one knows anything about!

Heire.

Yes; it's shameful the way things go on. Only last New Year, when the managership of the Savings Bank fell vacant, what must they do but give Monsen the go-by, and choose an individual that knew—[Coughs]—that knew how to keep his purse-strings drawn—which our princely