throughout wherever the exact phrase did not for the moment occur
to me. The second of my friends, whose name I here mention since
he is no longer among the living, Ole C. Schulerud, at that time
a student, later a lawyer, went to Christiania with the
transcript. I still remember one of his letters in which he
informed me that _Catiline_ had now been submitted to the
theater; that it would soon be given a performance,--about that
there could naturally be no doubt inasmuch as the management
consisted of very discriminating men; and that there could be as
little doubt that the booksellers of the town would one and all
gladly pay a round fee for the first edition, the main point
being, he thought, only to discover the one who would make the
highest bid.

After a long and tense period of waiting there began to appear in
the meantime a few difficulties. My friend had the piece
returned from the management with a particularly polite but
equally peremptory rejection. He now took the manuscript from
bookseller to bookseller; but all to a man expressed themselves
to the same effect as the theatrical management. The highest
bidder demanded so and so much to publish the piece without any
fee.

All this, however, was far from lessening my friend's belief in
victory. He wrote to the contrary that it was best even so; I
should come forward myself as the publisher of my drama; the
necessary funds he would advance me; the profits we should divide
in consideration of his undertaking the business end of the deal,
except the proof-reading, which he regarded as superfluous in
view of the handsome and legible manuscript the printers had to