"You should be more grateful to Providence, Olle; one should always be grateful to Providence—I don't quite know why. But I suppose one should."
Again there was silence. The next time it was Olle who broke it.
"Are you asleep?"
"No; I'm thinking of the statue of Gustavus Adolphus; would you believe me when I...."
"Aren't you cold?"
"Cold? It's quite warm here."
"My right foot is frozen."
"Pull the paint box over you, and tuck the brushes round your sides, then you'll be warmer."
"Do you think anybody in the world is as badly off as we are?"
"Badly off? Do you call us badly off when we have a roof over our heads? Some of the professors at the Academy, men who wear three-cornered hats and swords now, were much worse off than we are. Professor Lundström slept during nearly the whole of April in the theatre in the Hop garden. There was style in that! He had the whole of the left stage-box, and he maintains that after one o'clock there wasn't a single stall vacant; there was always a good house in the winter and a bad one in the summer. Good night, I'm going to sleep now."