"Well, well, what a dove-cote to land in," broke out Lars Peter in high spirits. "What's that you're doing, sorting angels' feathers?" The room was filled with his good-humored chuckles.
As quick as lightning one of the girls grasped a bundle and threw it at him. He only just escaped it by bending his head, and the thing brought up against the door-post. It was cotton-wool covered with blood and matter—from the hospital dust-bins. He knew that there was a trade in this in the Capital. "Puh!" he said in disgust, and hurried out. "Filthy, pish!" A shout of laughter went up from the girls.
From the head-office a little spectacled gentleman came tripping towards him. "What—what are you doing here?" he barked from afar, almost falling over himself in his eagerness. "It—it's no business of yours prying in here!" He was dreadfully dirty and unshaven, his collar and frock-coat looked as if they had been fished up from a ragbag. No, the trade never made Lars Peter as dirty as that; why, the dirt was in layers on this old man. But of course—this business was ever so much bigger than his own! Good-naturedly, he took off his hat.
"Are you Mr. Levinsohn?" asked he, when the old man had finished. "I've got some goods."
The old man stared at him speechless with surprise that any one could be so impudent as to take him for the head of the firm. "Oh, you're looking for Mr. Levinsohn," he said searchingly, "indeed?"
"Ay, I've got some goods I want to sell."
Now the old man understood. "And you must see him, himself—it's a matter of life and death—eh? No one else in the whole world can buy those goods from you, or the shaft'll break and the rags'll fall out and break to pieces, and Heaven knows what! So you must see Mr. Levinsohn himself." He looked the rag and bone man up and down, almost bursting with scorn.
"Well, I shouldn't mind seeing him himself," Lars Peter patiently said.
"Then you'd better drive down to the Riviera with your dust-cart, my good man."
"What, where?"