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 to the present time, and
Consul Garman had given orders that nothing should be spared to make it
a model of perfection.

Tom Robson was thus only able to get drunk by fits and starts, which he
did when they came to any important epoch in the building. On that day,
for instance, the time had just arrived for beginning to lay the
planking upon the timbers.

As Gabriel neither found his friend nor saw anything of the carriage
from Sandsgaard, which generally met him on his way from school, he set
off to walk homewards, down the long avenue which led to the family
property. It was a good half-hour's walk, and while he sauntered along,
swinging his heavy burden of the books he so cordially hated, he was
lost in gloomy thought. Every day, on his way from school, he met the