Kristen Larssen had got work to do at the doctor's, he had arranged his laboratory and put up the ventilators, etc. Kallem had never had anything to do with a more silent, suspicious man; but neither with a more clever one. He came one Sunday morning in the beginning of August, arrayed in his best clothes, a long-tailed brown cloth coat, with extraordinarily tight sleeves, an old rusty waistcoat, much too short, and a pair of gray trousers made of the so-called English leather. He went about bare-headed, as a rule; but on grand occasions he carried a hat in his hand; he could not bear anything on his head, unless the weather were fearfully cold. There he stood in the office, tall, thin, with closely-cropped hair, well-scrubbed face with black stubby beard. His whole appearance was lightened up by a white collar spread over a red-striped scarf. The doctor asked him to sit down, and inquired what was the matter with him. His answer was--first an inquiring glance, and then that he had not complained of his health. Kallem remarked by the answer he had just given him, that it was not easy to tell him what he wanted; but he thought to himself: Now, my friend, you may be content. At last he said that he knew that "the doctor's wife" had been five or six years in America; and that perhaps she might have some English books to lend him. As he had taught himself a little English, perhaps she would tell him how to proceed further. Was he thinking of emigrating? Oh, that would not be freedom; "to go and be a slave for the Norwegians ... over there too; no, I don't feel drawn toward that." "How old are you?" "About forty, or rather more." He looked over fifty. "I daresay my wife would with pleasure teach you English, Larssen, maybe in the evenings."