CHAPTER I.

MR. MALARIUS' FRIEND.


There is probably neither in Europe nor anywhere else a scholar whose
face is more universally known than that of Dr. Schwaryencrona, of
Stockholm. His portrait appears on the millions of bottles with green
seals, which are sent to the confines of the globe.

Truth compels us to state that these bottles only contain cod liver oil,
a good and useful medicine; which is sold to the inhabitants of Norway
for a "couronnes," which is worth one franc and thirty-nine centimes.

Formerly this oil was made by the fishermen, but now the process is a
more scientific one, and the prince of this special industry is the
celebrated Dr. Schwaryencrona.

There is no one who has not seen his pointed beard, his spectacles, his
hooked nose, and his cap of otter skin. The engraving, perhaps, is not
very fine, but it is certainly a striking likeness. A proof of this is
what happened one day in a primary school in Noroe, on the western coast
of Norway, a few leagues from Bergen.

Two o'clock had struck. The pupils were in their classes in the large,
sanded hall--the girls on the left and the boys on the right--occupied