became so totally indifferent to everything that his father could neither beat a smile nor a tear out of him. Then Per did away with the floggings and placed the boy in the shop. Greatly was he astonished when he saw his son dealing out to each customer exactly what was asked for, neither giving a grain too much, nor eating a prune himself, but weighing, reckoning, and entering the sales, with unmoved countenance, usually without speaking, and though slowly yet with scrupulous accuracy.
Again the father became hopeful, and sent his son by a herring boat to Hamburg, in order to place him at a commercial college, and give him an opportunity to acquire polished manners. Peter was absent eight months; that was long enough, no doubt. Before starting for home he had provided himself with six new suits of clothes, and when he landed he wore them all, one over the other, “for all articles in actual wear are exempt from duty.” He made precisely the same appearance in the street the next day as when he came ashore, minus his circumference. He walked stiff and straight, without a curve in his arms or hands; he bowed with a sudden jerk, bending as if he had no joints, only to grow the next moment as rigid as ever; he had become the embodi-
