"But if Nikolai were going to deal with tourists, he'd have to get a horse, wouldn't he?"
"Well, I suppose we could have managed it," Petra replied.
"It's four hundred kroner."
"Yes," she said, "and the carriage a hundred and fifty."
"But this land won't feed a horse!"
"What do other people feed horses on?" she asked. "They buy sacks of oats on the headland."
"That's eighteen kroner a sack."
"No, seventeen. And you earn as much as that on your first tourist."
Yes, Petra had it all figured out; she was the born landlady, and had grown up in a lodginghouse. She could cook, too, for had she not put two snakes of Italian macaroni in the barley broth? The money for coffee, for the bed at night and waffles in the morning, had grown so dear to her that she hid it away, watched it increase, and grew rich on it. She did not produce like other peasant women, but no one can do everything at one time, and Petra was a parasite. She did not want to live by earning something; she wanted to live on the tourists who earned enough themselves, and could afford to come.
Splendor and Englishmen, no doubt, in these parts! If it all works out as it should--and it probably will.