Page:The collected works of Henrik Ibsen (Volume 4).djvu/288

 out a bundle of old newspapers].
 * I daresay you think that we've no newspapers?
 * Wait; here I'll show you in red and black,
 * how the Bloksberg Post eulogises you;
 * and the Heklefield Journal has done the same
 * ever since the winter you left the country.-
 * Do you care to read them? You're welcome, Peer.
 * Here's an article, look you, signed "Stallionhoof."
 * And here too is one: "On Troll-Nationalism."
 * The writer points out and lays stress on the truth
 * that horns and a tail are of little importance,
 * so long as one has but a strip of the hide.
 * "Our enough," he concludes, "gives the hall-mark of trolldom
 * to man,"-and proceeds to cite you as an instance.

PEER
 * A hill-troll? I?

THE OLD MAN
 * Yes, that's perfectly clear.

PEER
 * Might as well have stayed quietly where I was?
 * Might have stopped in the Ronde in comfort and peace?
 * Saved my trouble and toil and no end of shoe-leather?
 * Peer Gynt-a troll? Why it's rubbish! It's stuff!
 * Good-bye! There's a halfpenny to buy you tobacco.

THE OLD M