"And what is it that you want?" Ibsen asked bluntly enough, motioning to the sofa, he himself taking a chair. From his manner and curtness of speech he might have been taken for a doctor during calling hours. He was friendly after a fashion, but the fashion was as if he had long since finished with making intimate acquaintances, and henceforth meant to hold the world at a distance. He looked "business" to the last degree. As the conversation progressed he thawed a little, and was not quite so reserved. But throughout our two visits with him--there was a second call on the next day--he at least _answered_ questions as if he were on the witness stand, and had been cautioned by his counsel not to overstate things. When questioning us as well as when volunteering an opinion which was not in direct reply to a query, he was not so painfully cautious. The Norwegian had prepared a list of questions threateningly long, to put to the old gentleman, but he religiously went through it from beginning to end. He quizzed him about everything and everybody, it seemed, from Prohibition, the Kaiser, Bismarck, Scandinavia, Russia and general European politics, to family matters, his manner of writing, his forthcoming play, and about numberless obscure passages in his earlier dramas. Ibsen took the blows as they fell, dodging, as I have said, when he felt like it, but receiving them in the main quite stolidly. Many of the questions were killed almost before they were delivered, by a frown or a gesture. Speaking about the alleged obscure passages in his books, he said: "They may be there, but I did not mean them to be obscure. For a time I used to answer letters from persons who wanted me to explain this or that sentence, but I had to give up the job--it got so enervating. I make my words as plain as I know how. Most of my readers comprehend me, I trust."