MIKKELSEN

Have you never taken anybody into your confidence ?
MEs. LYNGGAAED (after some consideration)

Oh, several years ago I even went to see Pastor
Madsen.
MIKKELSEN

Pastor Madsen — your own minister?

MES. LYNGGAAED

Yes.
MIKKELSEN (suppressing a smile)

Why did you go to see that lump of fat?

MRS. LYNGGAAED

Oh, after all, one might expect him to have given
life some thought.
MIKKELSEN

And what did Pastor Madsen have to say?

MES. LYNGGAAED

Before I went to him, I had searched the Bible from
end to end, according to my best ability. There, I
thought, it must be found in such manner that one
might go by it.
MIKKELSEN

For such purposes it is a rather poor book.
MES. LYNGGAAED

It has always been so easy for you to scoff, father.
MIKKELSEN

I am in dead earnest. The Bible is absolutely no



132 LYNGGAARD & CO. [act i

proper reading for capitalists. But tell me what
Pastor Madsen said?

MRS. liTNGGAAED

My impression is that he tried to squirm out of it.
MIKKELSEN

Of course. Or I should have been very much mis-
taken in him.
MES. LYNGGAARD

How can such a man be a minister.?

MIKKELSEN

When you don't go to Pastor Madsen with any im-
pertinent questions, there is nothing the matter with
him at all. And for that matter, I was the man
who recommended him to his present position.
