Page:The collected works of Henrik Ibsen (Volume 6).djvu/179

 know what you irresistibly remind me of? Of a summer night in the Far North.

Lundestad.

That's a curious simile.

Heire.

A very obvious one—the setting and the rising sun together. Delightful, delightful! But, talking of that, what the deuce is the matter outside there? Your fellow citizens are scuttling about like frightened fowls, cackling and crowing and not knowing what perch to settle on.

Stensgård.

Well, it's an occasion of great importance.

Heire.

Oh, you and your importance! No, it's something quite different, my dear friends. There are whispers of a great failure; a bankruptcy—oh, not political, Mr. Lundestad; I don't mean that!

Stensgård.

A bankruptcy?

Heire.

Hee-hee! That puts life into our legal friend. Yes, a bankruptcy; some one is on his last legs; the axe is laid to the root of the tree I say no more! Two strange gentlemen have been seen driving past; but where to? To whose address? Do you know anything, Mr. Lundestad?

Lundestad.

I know how to hold my tongue, Mr. Heire.