"Because it's rotten!" answered Borg.
"Can you make head or tail out of all this?" said Sellén to Olle.
"I don't understand a word of it," answered the latter.
"You will, when you are members of the Academy, and your names appear in the Directory."
CHAPTER XXIII
AUDIENCES
Nicholas Falk was sitting in his office; it was the morning of the day before Christmas Eve. He was a little changed; time had thinned his fair hair, and the passions had delved little channels in his face, for the acids which the parched soil distilled. He was stooping over a little book of the shape and size of the Catechism, and his busy pen seemed to prick out designs.
There was a knock at the door; immediately the book disappeared beneath the flap of his writing-desk, and was replaced by the morning paper. Falk was absorbed in its perusal when his wife entered.
"Take a seat," he said, politely.
"No, thank you; I'm in a hurry. Have you read the morning paper?"