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out a bundle of old newspapers].
- I daresay you think that we've no newspapers?
- Wait; here I'll show you in red and black,
- how the Bloksberg Post eulogises you;
- and the Heklefield Journal has done the same
- ever since the winter you left the country.-
- Do you care to read them? You're welcome, Peer.
- Here's an article, look you, signed "Stallionhoof."
- And here too is one: "On Troll-Nationalism."
- The writer points out and lays stress on the truth
- that horns and a tail are of little importance,
- so long as one has but a strip of the hide.
- "Our enough," he concludes, "gives the hall-mark of trolldom
- to man,"-and proceeds to cite you as an instance.
PEER
- A hill-troll? I?
THE OLD MAN
- Yes, that's perfectly clear.
PEER
- Might as well have stayed quietly where I was?
- Might have stopped in the Ronde in comfort and peace?
- Saved my trouble and toil and no end of shoe-leather?
- Peer Gynt-a troll? Why it's rubbish! It's stuff!
- Good-bye! There's a halfpenny to buy you tobacco.
THE OLD M
