It was a close day in July. There had been a bad drought this summer and the fields at Selambshof were half scorched, and promised a failure of the crops. Between the drooping and dusty elms of the avenue there was a smell of carrion and old cheese. The whole estate was enveloped in a vapour of putrefaction. The glue works over on the other side of the lake vibrated in the heat haze and seemed to dissolve in mere smells.
Peter suffered from the economic sirocco worse than ever. He could not even remain in the observatory, but had to go out for a walk in spite of the heat. How were things going at Ekbacken? Eagerly but carefully he spied round the corner, afraid of being seen, and cursing beneath his breath the high wooden fence that Herman had built towards the road. Then he moved on further in order to see how the town was behaving. Well, at last the new quay was ready. But how was building progressing on this side? Peter ferretted amongst the dumps of macadam and the blast holes. He searched for newly staked-out building sites and for new foundations. No, there was not enough progress to record. Why did they not hurry on the work more? It irritated him to see the workmen lying with their coats under their heads sleeping amongst the stones after their lunch.
Peter returned home by another way. He took a dull, ill-kept road, far back from the lake, which led on past the old quarry between the bare hills. Unsightly, ragged, untidy, the hill rose up, useless for all but the crows. The black smoke from a goods train puffing up the incline on the other side drifted slowly in between the dwarfed and miserable pines. Peter stopped a moment in the damp cold that rose even in the hot sun out of the fens of Träskängen. He struck his stick on the dried-up lumps of clay on the road and stared in front of him. He had suddenly got an idea. The railway! he thought. The railway! This corner is furthest from town, but I have got the railway. I attack Ekbacken from behind. I am finding gold on the rubbish heap!
He staggered home as in a delirium.
A few days later the shareholders of Selambshof were summoned to a meeting. Peter told them in a few words that he had found a buyer for the quarry and Träskängen. “That rubbish is not worth keeping and we need money to cover the bad season,” he said. Nobody had any serious objection and the sale was made. The buyer was Peter Selamb, through an agent of the name of Thomson. Mr. Thomson got very favourable terms of payment. Then there appeared an immense white board up in the Quarry overlooking the railway and bearing the words:
Solberget and Majängen
Building Sites for Sale!
Majängen Building Co., 3, Nygatan, Stockholm.
Peter the Boss had thought it suitable to make this little change in the old place-names.
At the same time a magnificent system of wide intersecting streets was marked out with neat white painted posts and iron stakes.
Strange to say the sites found a ready sale, for it was during the golden time of uncritical speculation in suburban land. And evidently there were some poor overcrowded, shut up souls for whom even the Quarry and Träskängen was a taste of liberty and of nature.
The whole autumn, winter and spring, the money dribbled in regularly. “Majängen” was a splendid coup. But Peter did not sit down on his gold hoard and purr. On the contrary he grew more and more restless as his banking account grew. He kept all his money in ready cash. With this ace of trumps in his hands he watched eagerly for the best moment to play it and gather in a fat trick. His glass almost burnt in his hand when he directed it towards Ekbacken. During many soliloquies he roamed restlessly about outside the cursed high wooden fence. Yes, yes, it reeked of an exquisite decay from afar. But why did not that stupid Herman come to Peter the Boss? If he had only known how willingly Peter would have helped him! It was not right of him to forget an old friend. Just fancy if Herman had been foolish enough to throw himself into the arms of one of the banks in the town, which would just hold his head above water for a time in order to let him sink afterwards and then march off with everything!
This thought worried Peter the Boss cruelly. One day when he had seen Herman sail out with the usual case of bottles he went straight through the high wooden gate and in to old Lundbom in the office.
Lundbom sat there aged and grey-haired, with a worried expression.
Peter stretched out a big and honest hand:
“Tell me all,” he said. “You can rely upon an old country neighbour. I am Herman’s friend, though he does not care about me. I want to help as much as I can.”
Lundbom had always had a sort of tender regard for Peter. He had taught him to play vira. He had been his legal adviser. With a sort of impartial pleasure he had seen his knowledge boldly applied by his clever
