“Oh, I have been down to Semb and got some cloth for a suit,” I reply, in a careless tone. “I didn’t think I could rub on any longer; there’s such a thing as treating oneself too shabbily.” He looks at me with an amazed start. “By the way, how are you getting on?” He asks it slowly. “Oh, beyond all expectation!” “Then you have got something to do now?” “Something to do?” I answer and seem surprised. “Rather! Why, I am book-keeper at Christensen’s--a wholesale house.” “Oh, indeed!” he remarks and draws back a little. “Well, God knows I am the first to be pleased at your success. If only you don’t let people beg the money from you that you earn. Good-day!” A second after he wheels round and comes back and, pointing with his cane to my parcel, says: “I would recommend my tailor to you for the suit of clothes. You won’t find a better tailor than Isaksen--just say I sent you, that’s all!” This was really rather more than I could swallow. What did he want to poke his nose in my affairs for? Was it any concern of his which tailor I employed? The sight of this empty-headed dandified “masher” embittered me, and I reminded him rather brutally of ten shilling he had borrowed from me. But before he could reply I regretted that I had asked for it. I got ashamed and avoided meeting his eyes, and, as a lady came by just then, I stepped hastily aside to let her pass, and seized the opportunity to proceed on my way. What should I do with myself whilst I waited? I could not visit a café with empty pockets, and I knew of no acquaintance that I could call on at this time of day. I wended my way instinctively up town, killed a good deal of time between the market-place and the Graendsen, read the _Aftenpost_, which was newly posted up on the board outside the office, took a turn down Carl Johann, wheeled round and went straight on to Our Saviour’s Cemetery, where I found a quiet seat on the slope near the Mortuary Chapel. I sat there in complete quietness, dozed in the damp air, mused, half-slept and shivered. And time passed. Now, was it certain that the story really was a little masterpiece of inspired art? God knows if it might not have its faults here and there. All things well weighed, it was not certain that it would be accepted; no, simply not even accepted. It was perhaps mediocre enough in its way, perhaps downright worthless. What security had I that it was not already at this moment lying in the waste-paper basket?... My confidence was shaken. I sprang up and stormed out of the graveyard.