BERNICK: I am not at all pleased, Aune, with the way things are going on in the yard. The repairs are slow. The _Palm Tree_ should long since have been at sea. That American ship, the _Indian Girl_, has been lying here five weeks. You do not know how to use the new machines, or else you will not use them. AUNE: Consul, the _Palm Tree_ can go to sea in two days, but the _Indian Girl_ is as rotten as matchwood in the bottom planking. Now, I am getting on for sixty, and I cannot take to new ways. I am afraid for the many folk whom the machinery will deprive of a livelihood. BERNICK: I did not send for you to argue. Listen now. The _Indian Girl_ must be got ready to sail in two days, at the same time as our own ship. There are reasons for this decision. The carping newspaper critics are pretending that we are giving all our attention to the _Palm Tree_. If you will not do what I order, I must look for somebody who will. AUNE: You are asking impossibilities, consul. But surely you cannot think of dismissing me, whose father and grandfather worked here all their lives before me. Do you know what is meant by the dismissal of an old workman? BERNICK: You are a stubborn fellow, Aune. You oppose me from perversity. I am sorry indeed if we must part, Aune. AUNE: We will not part, consul. The _Indian Girl_ shall be cleared in two days. [AUNE _bows and retires._ HILMAR TÖNNESEN _comes through the garden gate._ HILMAR: Good-day, Betty! Good-day, Bernick. Have you heard the new sensation? The two Americans are going about the streets in company with Dina Dorf. The town is all excitement about it. BERNICK (_looking out into the street_): They are coming here. We must be sure to treat them well. They will soon be away again. [JOHAN _and_ LONA _enter. Presently all disperse into the garden, and_ BERNICK _goes up to_ JOHAN. BERNICK: Now we are alone, Johan, I must thank you. For to you I owe home, happiness, position, and all that I have and am. Not one in ten thousand would have done all that you then did for me. I was the guilty one. On the night when that drunken wretch came home it was for Betty's sake that I broke off the entanglement with Madame Dorf; but still, that you should act in such a noble spirit of self-sacrifice as to turn appearances against yourself, and go away, can never be forgotten by me.