"None better in Iceland, sir, if it only had a chance, and if you can afford to buy it out and out----"
"I think I can--I've money enough in my pocket at this moment to buy the place to-morrow and leave some for something else. I'm sorry for you, though, and if it's painful to you to hear me talk like this----"
Magnus, who had been rolling in his chair like a man whose mind as well as his body was uneasy, began to laugh immoderately. "Not at all, sir! Not at all!" he said, filling his glass. "It's pleasant to hear of anybody having more money than he wants. For my part, I've never had enough to pay my debts, sir. For sixteen years I've been ploughing the waves and now," raising his glass and draining it, "I'm reaping the breakers, b---- them!"
Christian Christiansson trembled to his very heart at the sound of Magnus's laughter--the bitter laughter of rebellion and despair--but he tried to cover up his fear and to carry it off with a cheery tone.
"Don't be too depressed," he said. "Nobody knows what the future has in store for him. It's a pretty dark night outside, but all the same the sun will rise to-morrow morning. Besides, there's always a sunny side to misfortune if we'll only allow ourselves to see it. Life is sweet, my friend, whatever happens."
"You think it is, sir?"
"I know it is, so why should we sit down on our little handful of thorns?"
"Because some of us have nothing else to sit upon," said Magnus, and he laughed again--the same cold, quaking laughter.
Christian Christiansson shuddered, but struggled on. "You think you've failed, but I know some that have succeeded who would be glad to change places with you any minute. They've got their gold or their fame or both pouring down on them like an avalanche, and nothing to do with it, nobody to share it with--so it is only so much Dead Sea fruit being piled on their backs. You are not like that. Even if you have to lose your land, you've got your health, and a good character and a clean conscience, and your dear ones left to you, haven't you?"
"That's why!" said Magnus. "You don't suppose I'm thinking of myself, do you? It's just because I've got my dear ones left to me that this accursed ill-luck is so hard to bear. What's it to me to have my houses full of lambs, if the floods have come and they are floating on the lake? You talk like a man who has never known misfortune, sir."