Page:The collected works of Henrik Ibsen (Volume 4).djvu/301

 :and excuse my speaking my mind so bluntly.-
 * Come, my dearest friend, banish this stuff from your head,
 * and get used to the thought of the casting-ladle.
 * What would you gain if I lodged you and boarded you?
 * Consider; I know you're a sensible man.
 * Well, you'd keep your memory; that's so far true;-


 * but the retrospect o'er recollection's domain
 * would be, both for heart and for intellect,
 * what the Swedes call "Mighty poor sport" indeed.
 * You have nothing either to howl or to smile about,
 * no cause for rejoicing nor yet for despair,
 * nothing to make you feel hot or cold;
 * only a sort of a something to fret over.

PEER
 * It is written: It's never so easy to know
 * where the shoe is tight that one isn't wearing.

THE LEAN ONE
 * Very true; I have-praise be to so-and-so!-
 * no occasion for more than a single odd shoe.
 * But it's lucky we happened to speak of shoes;
 * it reminds me that I must be hurrying on;-
 * I'm after a roast that I hope will prove fat;
 * so I really mustn't stand gossiping here.-

PEER
 * And may one inquire, then, what sort of sin-diet
 * the man has been fattened on?

THE LEAN O