"
"Is the man an engineer?"
"From Egypt. A Muhammadan, I daresay. Brown as a coffee-berry, and
rolling in money."
"Do you hear that, Froken Bull? Stop a minute, here's some news for
you."
The girl addressed turned aside and joined them. "Oh, the same piece
of news that's all over the town, I suppose. Well, I can tell you, he's
most tremendously nice."
"Sh!" whispered the telegraphist. Peer Holm was just coming out of the
Grand Hotel, dressed in a grey suit, and with a dark coat over his arm.
He was trying to get a newly-lit cigar to draw, as he walked with a
light elastic step past the group at the corner. A little farther up the
street he encountered Merle, and took her arm, and the two walked off
together, the young people at the corner watching them as they went.
"And when is it to be?" asked the telegraphist.
"He wanted to be married immediately, I believe," said Froken Bull, "but
I suppose they'll have to wait till the banns are called, like other
people."
Lorentz D. Uthoug's long, yellow-painted wooden house stood facing the
market square; the office and the big ironmonger's shop were on the
ground floor, and the family lived in the upper storeys. "That's
where he lives," people would say. Or "There he goes," as the broad,
grey-bearded man passed down the street. Was he such a big man, then?
He could hardly be called really rich, though he had a saw-mill and a
machine-shop and a flour-mill, and owned a country place some way out
of the town.
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