"Drowned?" asked Sellén, who was the first to regain his self-possession.
"Drowned," echoed Borg. "Can either of you identify his clothes?"
Three miserable suits were hanging against the wall. Sellén at once picked out the right one; a blue jacket with sporting buttons, and a pair of black trousers, rubbed white at the knees.
"Are you certain?"
"Ought to know my own coat—which I borrowed from Falk."
Sellén drew a pocket-book from the breast pocket of the jacket, it was saturated with water and covered with green algæ, which Borg called enteromorph. He opened it by the light of the lantern and examined its contents—two or three overdue pawn-tickets and a bundle of papers tied together, on which was written: To him who cares to read.
"Have you seen enough?" asked Borg. "Then let's go and have a drink."
The three mourners (friend was a word only used by Levin and Lundell when they wanted to borrow money) went to the nearest public-house as representatives of the Red Room.
Beside a blazing fire and behind a battery of bottles, Borg began the perusal of the papers which Olle had left behind, but more than once he had to have recourse to Falk's skill as an "autographer," for the water had washed away the words here and there; it looked as if the writer's tears had fallen on the sheets, as Sellén facetiously remarked.
"Stop talking now," said Borg, emptying his glass of grog with a grimace which exhibited all his back teeth; "I am going to read, and I beg of you not to interrupt me.