The engineer had kept an eye on the man from the day of their first talk in the summer. It was no longer an intense yearning that made Jan haunt the pier. Now he hardly glanced toward the boat. He came only to meet people who humoured his mania, who called him "Emperor" just for the sport of hearing him sing and narrate his wild fancies.
But why be annoyed at that? thought the engineer. The man was a lunatic of course. But perhaps the madness need never have become so firmly fixed as it was then. If some one had ruthlessly yanked Jan of Ruffluck down off his imperial throne in the beginning possibly he could have been saved.
The engineer flashed the man a challenging glance. Jan looked condescendingly regretful, but remained adamant as before.
In that fine land of Portugallia there were only princes and generals, to be sure—only richly dressed people. Mad Ingeborg in her old cotton headshawl and her knit jacket would naturally be out of place there. But Heavenly Father! the engineer actually thought—
Engineer Boraeus looked just then as if he would have liked to give Jan a needed lesson, but he only shrugged his shoulders. He knew he was not the right person for that, and would simply make bad worse. Quietly withdrawing from the crowd, he walked down to the end of the pier just as the boat hove into view from behind the nearest point.
DEPOSED
Long before his marriage to Anna Ericsdotter of Falla, Lars
Gunnarson happened one day to be present at an auction sale.
The parties who held the auction were poor folk who probably had no tempting wares to offer the bargain seekers, for the bidding had been slow, and the sales poor. They had a right to expect better results, with Jöns of Kisterud as auctioneer. Jöns was such a capital funmaker that people used to attend all auctions at which he officiated just for the pleasure of listening to him. Although he got off all his usual quips and jokes, he could not seem to infuse any life into the bidders on this occasion. At last, not knowing what else he could do, he put down his hammer saying he was too hoarse to do any more crying.
"The senator will have to get some one else to offer the wares," he told Carl Carlson of Stovik, who stood sponsor for the auction. "I've shouted myself hoarse at these stone images standing around me, and will have to go home and keep my mouth shut for a few weeks, till I can get back my voice."
It was a serious matter for the senator to be left without a crier, when most of the lots were still unsold; so he tried to persuade Jöns to continue. But it was plain that Jöns could not afford to hurt his professional standing by holding a poor auction, and therefore he became so hoarse all at once that he could not even speak in a whisper. He only wheezed.