No, not even the newspaper, more's the pity. The man looked at me; his
weak eyes were each covered with a film which gave them a glassy
appearance; his gaze grew bleary, and made a disgusting impression on me.

"You are a stranger here?" he said.

"Yes." Could he not even read the name of the paper he held in his hand?

"Barely." For that matter, he could hear directly that I was a stranger.
There was something in my accent which told him. It did not need much; he
could hear so well. At night, when every one slept, he could hear people
in the next room breathing....

"What I was going to say was, 'where do you live?'"

On the spur of the moment a lie stood, ready-made, in my head. I lied
involuntarily, without any object, without any _arriere pensee_, and
I answered--

"St. Olav's Place, No. 2."

"Really?" He knew every stone in St. Olav's Place. There was a fountain,
some lamp-posts, a few trees; he remembered all of it. "What number do you
live in?"

Desirous to put an end to this, I got up. But my notion about the
newspaper had driven me to my wit's end; I resolved to clear the thing up,
at no matter what cost.