The execution-server had a kind of ancient deferential respect for Grip. He knew that he had belonged to the higher sphere, and that he still, whenever he liked, might show himself in the houses both of the sheriff and of old Rist, places which he never left without improvements in his outfit.
"I will confide a secret to you, Reierstad. If you are a little of a genius, then you must drink—at least it was true in my time. There was great havoc on that kind, you see, on account of the vacuum. Did you not notice something of that?"
"Hi, hi, hi," neighed Simensen.
"Yes, you understand what I mean, Simensen?—A good glass of punch extract in this frost—of yours in the shop—would taste so good now, wouldn't it? I am not at present flush of money; but if you will have the goodness to put it down."
Simensen caught the idea, of course. "All right, then."
"As you grease the wheels, the carriage goes, you know very well, my dear Simensen—and, well,—there comes the fluid.—Do you want to know why we drink?"
"Oh, it can't be so very difficult to fathom that."
"No, no; but yet it may perhaps be placed in a higher light, which a man like you will not fail to appreciate—you know there is a great objection to new illumination fluids, besides—you see, hm!" He seated himself comfortably—"You live in a thin coat and cold, poor conditions—are ashamed of yourself at heart—feel that you are sinking as a man, day by day. If there is a discussion, you don't dare to assert yourself; if you are placed at a table, you don't dare to speak. And then—only two drams—two glasses of poor brandy for spectacles to see through—and ein, zwei, drei, marsch! The whole world is another!—You become yourself, feel that you are in that health and vigor which you were once intended for; your person becomes independent, proud, and bold; the words fall from your lips; your ideas are bright; people admire. The two glasses—only two glasses—I do not refuse, however, the three, four, five, and six, your health!—make the difference—you know what the difference is, Simensen!—between his healthy and his sick man, while the man whom the world struck down—well, yes—But the two glasses carry him always farther—farther—inexorably farther, you see—until he ends in the workhouse. That was a big syllogism."
"Yes, it certainly was," said Simensen, nodding to the execution-server; "it took half a bottle with it."