ie, and he again resumed
the book, to continue the examination. As ill luck would have it, he
once more repeated, "_Avoir, avant_," and then half abstractedly,
"_avu_." "Ah, you young idiot!" cried he, in a discordant voice, "can't
you manage _avoir_ yet? Whatever is to become of you?"

"Merchant," answered Gabriel, bluntly.

"What do you say? You dare to answer your master? Are you going to be
impertinent? I'll teach you! Where's the persuader?" and the master
strode up to his seat, and, diving down into his desk, began routing
about in it.

At this moment the passage door opened, and an extraordinary and most
unscholarly looking head intruded itself into the room. The head had a
red nose, and wore a long American goat's-beard and a blue seaman's cap.
"Are you there?" said the head, addressing Master Gabriel in a
half-drunken voice. "Is that where you are, poor boy? Bah! what an
atmosphere! I only just came in to tell you to come down to the
ship-yard when you get out of school; we are just beginning the
planking."

He did not get any further, for at the sight of the long-legged master,
who stalked down from the desk, quite scandalized at this disturbance of
order, the head suddenly stopped in its harangue, and with a hearty,
"Well, I'm blest! what a ghost!" disappeared, closing the door after it.

It did not take very much to provoke the laughter of the boys, and when
at the same moment the bell rang to announce that the school-hour was
over, the class broke up in confusion, and the master hastened, fuming
with rage, to complain to the rector.

Gabriel hurried off as fast as he could, in hopes of catching up his
friend who had caused the disturbance, but he had already disappeared;
he had probably gone down to the town to continue his libations. This
friend was a foreman shipwright, who, since his return from America, had
borne the name of Tom Robson. His real name when he left home was Thomas
Robertsen, but it had got changed somehow in America, and he kept to it
as it was.

Tom Robson was the cleverest foreman on the whole west coast, but his
drinking propensities tried to the utmost both the patience and the
firmness of his employers. He had already built several vessels for
Garman and Worse, but he was determined that the one he was now
superintending at Sandsgaard should be his masterpiece.

This vessel was of about nine hundred tons burden, and was the largest
craft that had been built at that port up