"A boat?" I said in my turn, for I had not come by boat on my last visit; I had walked instead over fjelds and valleys many miles from the sea. "Yes, why not?" I said. "But where does it go?" "I thought you wanted a boat to go to the trading center," she replied, "because that's where the steamer stops. We've rowed over lots of people this year." Great changes here; the motor traffic in Stordalen must have completely altered all the other traffic since my last visit ten months ago. "Where can I stop for a few days?" I asked. "At the trading center, the other side of the islands. Or there's Eilert and Olaus; they're both on this side. You could go there; they've got big houses." She showed me the two places on this side of the water, close to the shore, and I proceeded thither. XXVII A large house, with and upper story of planks built on later, displayed a new signboard on the wall: Room and Board. The barn, as usual, was a peat hut. As I did not know which was Eilert and which Olaus, and had stopped to consider which road to take, a man came hurrying toward me. Ah, well, the world is a small place; we meet friends and acquaintances everywhere. Here am I, meeting an old acquaintance, the thief of last winter, the pork thief. What luck, what a satisfaction! This was Eilert. He took in paying guests now. At first he pretended not to recognize me, but he soon gave that up. Once he had done so, however, he carried the thing off in style: "Well, well," he said, "what a nice surprise! You are most welcome under my humble roof, and such it is!" My own response was rather less jaunty, and I stood still collecting my thoughts. When I had asked a few questions, he explained that since the motor traffic had started in Stordalen, many visitors came through this way, and sometimes they wanted to stop over at his house before being rowed across to the steamer. They always came down in the evenings, and it might be fine, or it might not, and at night the fjord was often wild. He had therefore had to arrange to house them, because after all, you can't expect people to spend the night outdoors. "So you've turned into a hotelkeeper," I said.