I can’t live on a good paper. You were to make things lively; you were to grapple with abuses, as you promised yesterday. The bigwigs were to be pilloried; the paper was to be filled with things people were bound to read—and now, you leave me in the lurch——
Stensgård.
Ho-ho! You think I am going to keep you supplied with libels! No, thank you, my good sir!
Aslaksen.
Mr. Stensgård, you musn’t drive me to desperation, or you’ll repent it.
Stensgård.
What do you mean?
Aslaksen.
I mean that I must make the paper pay in another way. Heaven knows I should be sorry to do it. Before you came I made an honest living out of accidents and suicides and other harmless things, that often hadn’t even happened. But now you have turned everything topsy-turvy; people now want very different fare——
Stensgård.