Page:The collected works of Henrik Ibsen (Heinemann Volume 4).djvu/302

And excuse my speaking my mind so bluntly.—
Come, my dearest friend, banish this stuff from your head,^[1]
And get used to the thought of the casting-ladle.
What would you gain if I lodged you and boarded you?
Consider; I know you're a sensible man.
Well, you'd keep your memory; that's so far true;—
But the retrospect o'er recollection's domain
Would be, both for heart and for intellect,
What the Swedes call "Mighty poor sport"^[2] indeed.
You have nothing either to howl or to smile about;
No cause for rejoicing nor yet for despair;
Nothing to make you feel hot or cold;
Only a sort of a something to fret over.

Peer.

It is written: It's never so easy to know
Where the shoe is tight that one isn't wearing.

The Lean One.

Very true; I have—praise be to so-and-so!—
No occasion for more than a single odd shoe.
But it's lucky we happened to speak of shoes;
It reminds me that I must be hurrying on;—
I'm after a roast that I hope will prove fat;
So I really mustn't stand gossiping here.—

Peer.

And may one inquire, then, what sort of sin-diet
The man has been fattened on?

1. Literally, "knock out that tooth."
2. "Bra litet rolig."