Happily the ordinary tenor of life there ran on a different plane. Neighborly kindness ruled; on the basis of the square deal, however: to every one his own. Stick up for your rights; these secure, go any length to oblige a neighbor. It is a characteristic of the Danish people, who are essentially honest, intolerant of pretence, stubbornly democratic, and withal good-natured to a degree. Hence their apparent passion for argument, which is all-pervading, but utterly harmless, excepting as it delays action. Business is held up; trains appear sometimes to stop for argument between the station-master and conductor. When the whistle blows, they part with a nod and a cordial “Paa Gjensyn”--_au revoir_. When I was last there, I was a listener to a conversation between two men, strangers to one another, who were waiting for a train. The one had overheard the other tell his name and that of the town he hailed from. He turned upon him straightway: “Are you Christian Sörensen?” he demanded. “Yes.” “So you are that? And you are from Hvillingebäk.” “Yes, I am that,” patiently. “So--I thought there was only one Christian Sörensen in Hvillingebäk, and him _I_ know,” with strong emphasis on the “I.” “Yes! Well, my name is Jens Christian Sörensen.” Two minutes after I saw them taking a stein of beer together at the depot bar, on the friendliest of terms. Of such kind was the long-standing feud between the factory owner in the Old Town and Knud Clausen, his next-door neighbor, who kept cows. Knud’s manure heap, which was his wealth, for he had also a farm, was right under the other’s dining-room window and was not nice, to put it mildly. The man of industry and wealth tried to buy it many a time and oft, but Knud would not sell; not he, for in an unguarded moment the other had disputed his right to keep it there at all, and he was merely standing upon his undoubted rights. Had not his father kept it there before him? So it was a drawn battle, and the subject of many heart-burnings, until the Palm Sunday when the manufacturer’s daughter went to confirmation. Knud loved the ground she trod on, as did every one else in the Old Town, and sought a way of showing his good-will. He found it in the bone of contention in his back yard. When the family, returning from church, sat down to dinner, they beheld the offensive pile hidden entirely under a layer of grass and green leaves with daisies stuck in, like silver stars on a green carpet, and Knud himself beaming all over, presenting congratulations in mimic show.