knew how they had striven and denied themselves; what they had
discovered and ventured. He grew eloquent when he began on such
tales. He lived through the sufferings of those young people; he
followed them in their successes; he rejoiced in their victories.
Petter Nord listened quite fascinated.

Halfvorson was stone deaf, but that was no obstacle to conversation,
for he read by the lips everything that was said. On the other
hand, he could not hear his own voice. It rolled out as strangely
monotonous as the roar of a distant waterfall. But his peculiar way
of speaking made everything he said sink in, so that one could not
escape from it for many days. Poor Petter Nord!

"What is most needed to become rich," said Halfvorson, "is the
foundation. But it cannot be earned. Take note that they all have
found it in the street or discovered it between the lining and
cloth of a coat which they had bought at a pawnbroker's sale; or
that it had been won at cards, or had been given to them in alms by
a beautiful and charitable lady. After they had once found that
blessed coin, everything had gone well with them. The stream of
gold welled from it as from a fountain. The first thing that is
necessary, Petter Nord, is the foundation."

Halfvorson's voice sounded ever fainter and fainter. Young Petter
Nord sat in a kind of trance and saw endless vistas of gold before
him. On the dining table rose great piles of ducats; the floor
heaved white with silver, and the indistinct patterns on the dirty
wall-paper changed into banknotes, big as handkerchiefs. But
directly before his eyes fluttered the fifty-crown note, surrounded
by wide rings, luring him like the most beautiful eyes. "Who can