"Damn you!" he hissed through his teeth. "I'll break every bone in your body," and I think he would have fulfilled the contract had the proprietor given him a chance. The latter dropped my bag, and fled back into the restaurant for reinforcements. But, by the time he was ready for war again, we were in the street, and the landlord contented himself with calling us swindlers and pigs. I make no doubt that later there was a protracted discussion in the restaurant about the matter, and that for many a day afterward the _Starumgäste_, who had witnessed the affair, made beery conjectures as to our nationality and education. Whatever their final decision may have been, the Norwegian had carried his point. Alone, I doubt whether my independence would have been so assertive, but I was glad at the time to have witnessed a successful revolt against the tyrannical German _Getränkezwang_. What Ibsen, whom we saw in his home a few days later, would have said to this episode, is hard to conjecture. Very possibly he might have told us that we were in the wrong in going to such a place, that we should have sought out a vegetarian eating-place--the teetotaler's refuge, when the _Bierzwang_ is to be avoided. He very frankly told us, however, what he thought of Prohibition as a cure-all for the liquor traffic problem. The Norwegian had asked his opinion in the matter and he got it. This is about what Ibsen said: "You can't make people good by law. Only that which a man does of his own free will and because he knows that it is the _right_ thing to do, counts in this world. Legislating about morals is at best a sorry makeshift. Men will have to learn to legislate for themselves without any state interference, before human conduct is on a right basis." This deliverance on the part of Ibsen came in its turn with other topics on which he expressed himself during our interview with him. We had called at his home at the suggested hour--eleven--and had been immediately shown into the parlor, I think it was. Pretty soon Ibsen strolled in. I should have recognized him without trouble anywhere. The long, defiant hair pushed back from his forehead, the silky side whiskers, the inevitable spectacles, the tightly closed lips, the long coat--these things had all been brought out prominently in his photographs, and were unmistakable. At the time he was the most famous literary man I had ever met, and he was easily the most talked about dramatist in Europe. I was much impressed by this fact, and for the moment probably looked at him as if it was the last chance to see a great public character that I was to have. The Norwegian took the event more calmly, walking up to Ibsen with his great hand outstretched as if to an older brother. The two men looked each other well in the eyes--their eyes were strikingly similar in color and shape--passed greetings in Norwegian, and then I was introduced.