About twenty years had passed, and the traffic down in the country store and inn showed an entirely different style both in building and goods. There had also begun to be a route for travellers and tourists in the summer up through the valley.
The snow drifted, so that it lay high up on the steps this Sunday afternoon.
But in the little warm room behind the shop there was jollity. He had come up again, he, the delightful Grip; and now he was sitting there with the shopkeeper, the bailiff's man, and the execution-server.
Only let him get a little something to drink.
"Your health, you old execution-horse!" came in Grip's voice—"When I think of all those whom you have taken the skin off without ever getting any part in the roast, I can get up a kind of sympathy for you; we are both of us cheated souls."
"Although I have not acquired the learning and sciences"—began the gray-headed man who had been spoken to, somewhat irritated—"I insist on—"
"Everything lawful, yes—oh—oh—never mind that, Reierstad. Consider that science is the sea of infinity, and a few drops more or less do not count either for or against. Just peep out a little into the starry night, and you will have a suspicion that the whole of the planet, my friend, on which you parade in such a very small crevice, is only one pea in the soup—soup, I say—it is all the same. Isn't that so, Mr.—Mr. Simensen?"
He always appealed to the shop boy, who, with his small pig's eyes, smiled very superciliously and was evidently flattered.
"And in regard to the last information, one ought to have a little something to reinforce the oil in the lamp with, Sir."
It was the execution-server who had stood treat first—a pint and a half bottle of spirits.