THE START 91 



thing on deck shipshape and properly lashed, the sea 

 could not do us much harm, however rousfh it miofht be • 

 for we knew well enough that ship and rigging would 

 hold out. 



It was late in the evening of the last day of June 

 when we rounded Kvarven and stood in for Bereen in 

 the gloom of the sullen night. Next morning when I 

 came on deck Vagen lay clear and bright in the sun, 

 all the ships being gayly decked out with bunting from 

 topmost to deck. The sun was holding high festival in 

 the sky — Ulriken, Floiren, and Lovstakken sparkled and 

 glittered, and greeted me as of old. It is a marvellous 

 place, that old Hanseatic town ! 



In the evening I was to give a lecture, but arrived 

 half an hour too late. For just as I was dressing to go 

 a number of bills poured in, and if I was to leave the 

 town as a solvent man I must needs pay them, and so 

 the public perforce had to wait. But the worst of it was 

 that the saloon was full of those everlastingly inquisitive 

 tourists. I could hear a whole company of them besieg- 

 ing my cabin door while I was dressing, declaring "they 

 must shake hands with the doctor!"* One of them act- 

 ually peeped in through the ventilator at me, my secre- 

 tary told me afterwards. A nice sight she must have 

 seen, the lovely creature ! Report says she drew her 

 head back very quickly. Indeed, at every place where we 



* English in the original. 



