Then he leaned back in his chair again, moved his heavy body a few times and soon gave himself over to care-free slumber. The same thing was repeated on many an evening. Hauke had sharp eyes, and when they sat together, he did not neglect to call the old man's attention to one or the other violation or omission in dike matters, and as the latter could not always keep his eyes closed, unawares the management acquired a greater efficiency and those who in other times had gone on sinning in their old, careless ways and now, as it were, unexpectedly felt their mischievous or lazy fingers slapped, looked round indignantly and with astonishment to see whence these slaps had come. And Ole, the head man, did not hesitate to spread the information and in this way to rouse indignation among these people against Hauke and his father, who had to bear part of the guilt. The others, however, who were not affected or who were not concerned with the matter, laughed and rejoiced to see that the young man had at last got the old man going a bit. "It's only too bad," they said, "that the young fellow hasn't enough ground under his feet; else he might make a dikemaster of the kind we used to have--but those few acres of his old man wouldn't do, after all!" Next autumn, when the inspector and the dikemaster general came for the inspection, he looked at old Tede Volkerts from top to toe, while the latter was urging him to sit down to lunch. "I tell you, dikemaster," he said, "I was thinking--you have actually grown ten years younger. You have set my blood coursing with all your proposals; if only we can get down with all that to-day!" "Oh, we shall, we shall, your Honor," replied the old man with a smirk; "the roast goose over there will give us strength! Yes, thank God, I am still always well and brisk!" He looked round the room to make sure that Hauke was not about; then he added with calm dignity: "And so I hope I may fulfill the duties of my office a few more blessed years." "And to this, my dear dikemaster," returned his superior, "we want to drink this glass together." Elke who had looked after the lunch laughed to herself as she left the room just when the glasses were clicking. Then she took a dish of scraps from the kitchen and walked through the stable to give them to the poultry in front of the outside door. In the stable stood Hauke Haien and with his pitchfork put hay into the racks of the cows that had to be brought up here so early because of the bad weather. But when he saw the girl come, he stuck the pitchfork into the ground. "Well, Elke!" he said. She stood still and nodded at him: "All right, Hauke--but you should have been in there!" "Do you think so? Why, Elke?" "The dikemaster general has praised the master!" "The master? What has that to do with me?" "No, I mean, he has praised the dikemaster!" The young man's face was flushed crimson: "I know very well," he said, "what you are driving at."