"Kött! kött!" he exclaimed.
"Visserligen," said the girl, and walked away with her tall coffee-pot and tray; but, stopping when she had reached the door, she looked back as if some other idea, which she had altogether forgotten, suddenly presented itself to her mind, and she asked,
"Farkött?"
The little Russian understood her directly, and told me she desired to know if I would have some 'farkött,' mutton. I undertook the task of answering for myself, and exclaimed aloud, with striking brevity,
"Ja."
My pretty Hebe laughed outright, and left the apartment to seek the mutton.
In ten minutes she reappeared smiling; and brought me not only what I asked for, but three or four potatoes in the bargain. I pointed to them. Nodding her head, as if she understood I meant to say "How kind of you to bring those too," she said,
"Goot."
"Ja; manga goot," I answered in a dialect of my own. She hurried away laughing heartily; but did not forget to glance at me over her shoulder as she passed out of the room.
Crossing, on my way home, a bridge which is thrown over one of the many canals that intersect Gottenborg in all quarters, I stumbled against an old watchman. In one hand he held the formidable "Morning Star," or truncheon, and in the other hand an implement of chastisement, of which I could make out no decisive classification, at least, so I fancied; and, led away by that fancy, I drew near to the unsleeping Swede. I requested him, as courteously and distinctly as I possibly could in tattered English and with original signs, that he would permit me to take a bird's-eye view of the instrument. It was a stick four or five yards in length, to the end of which two pieces of iron were attached in the shape of a heart. The implement may be drawn thus: