"No, she is Norwegian, but we get on very well together for all that."
She dived down deeper than ever, laughing continually.
The room they were in was oblong; Kallem saw directly that it was the dining-room; probably also the waiting-room for patients. The inner room, with windows both to the front and to the southeast, was of course his work-room; he would receive people there when not at the hospital. He did not go into it, but out of the dining-room and into the passage again. To the right was the kitchen door. He was met by an array of beer-bottles on the kitchen dresser; some empty, some full.
"Whose are those bottles?"
"They belong to the saddler."
"To the paper-hanger, you mean?"
Then it dawned upon Kallem what kind of "hindrances" he had alluded to; and that he was quite tipsy at that very moment, and his wife still tipsier! That was why the men had been so long before they moved in the piano; they had been treated all round.
"Will you kindly ask the Dane to come to me here?"
The girl went directly, and directly too appeared the round, shining face with hundreds of twinkles in his eye; his wife was behind him, peeping out first at one side, then at the other.
"Are those your bottles?"