of these gentlemen returned to him with a very wrathful
countenance, shook his fist at him, and vociferated with excited
gestures something which to Halfdan's ears had a very unintelligible
sound. He made a vain effort to defend himself; the situation appeared
so utterly incomprehensible to him, and in his dumb helplessness he
looked pitiful enough to move the heart of a stone. No English phrase
suggested itself to him, only a few Norse interjections rose to his
lips. The man's anger suddenly abated; he picked up the paper which
he had thrown on the sidewalk, and stood for a while regarding Halfdan
curiously.

"Are you a Norwegian?" he asked.

"Yes, I came from Norway yesterday."

"What's your name?"

"Halfdan Bjerk."

"Halfdan Bjerk! My stars! Who would have thought of meeting you here!
You do not recognize me, I suppose."

Halfdan declared with a timid tremor in his voice that he could not at
the moment recall his features.

"No, I imagine I must have changed a good deal since you saw me," said
the man, suddenly dropping into Norwegian. "I am Gustav Olson, I used to
live in the same house with you once, but that is long ago now."

Gustav Olson--to be sure, he was the porter's son in the house,
where his mother had once during his childhood, taken a flat. He well
remembered having clandestinely traded jack-knives and buttons with him,
in spite of the frequent warnings he had received to have nothing to
do with him; for Gustav, with his broad freckled face and red hair, was
looked upon by the genteel inhabitants of the upper flats as rather a
disreputable character. He had once whipped the son of a colonel who
had been impudent to him, and thrown a snow-ball at the head of a
new-fledged lieutenant, which offenses he had duly expiated at a house
of correction. Since that time he had vanished from Halfdan's horizon.
He had still the same broad freckled face, now covered with a lusty
growth of coarse red beard, the same rebellious head of hair, which
refused to yield to the subduing influences of the comb, the same
plebeian hands and feet, and uncouth clumsiness of form. But his linen
was irreproachable, and a certain dash in his manner, and the
loud fashionableness of his attire, gave unmistakable evidences of
prosperity.

"Come, Bjerk," said he in a tone of good-fellowship, which was not
without its sting to the idealistic republican, "you must take up a
better business than selling yesterday's `Tribune.' Th