"The overseer and the men, I suppose, must have their fill of slom, so you want me to be satisfied with pancakes." The Lieutenant waved away the plate of nice hot cakes.
"Oh, no, that's not the reason," said Mamselle Lovisa. "The overseer and the men are so sick of slom we dare not set it before them."
Then the Lieutenant had to laugh; but, as he would not touch the pancakes, they had to fetch him his slom.
Toward the end of the second week the whole household was in open rebellion. The housekeeper raged about the inroads on the butter, and the servants declared they could not go on working at a place where they fed you on nothing but slom. It had reached a pass where the Lieutenant dared not show his face in the kitchen; for there the murmurs were loudest. Nor were things as they should be in the dining room. Joy had fled the board. The governess left her plate untouched and the little daughters of the house, who otherwise stuck by their father through thick and thin, even they began to pipe a few feeble protests.
Then at last Fru Lagerlöf came to the rescue. She conferred with Mamselle Lovisa and the housekeeper, and they all thought it time now to resort to the old tried and sure remedy.
At dinner there was boiled slom. Now, the very look of boiled slom is enough! There is a pallor about it peculiarly corpselike, and, besides, it is quite tasteless. Just the sight of it takes away one's appetite.
