Why should I drink up when I dislike it? Well, don’t take offense and knit your brows on that account; anyway, since you insist, I’ll do it this once. I just hope it won’t go to my head. It’s ridiculous, but I can take so little. Skoal!”

“To the last drop!” the deputy shouts again, “bottoms up! There now, that’s right. And now we’ll sit down and make some faces. First, you can grind your teeth a little, and then I’ll snip off your beard and make you ten years younger. But first you’ll grind your teeth, all right?”

“No, I won’t, not in front of these people I don’t know. You mustn’t insist, I really won’t do it,” Miniman answers, wanting to leave. “Besides, I don’t have time,” he says.

“Don’t have time? That’s too bad. Ha-ha, that’s really too bad. Not even time?”

“No, not right now.”

“Now listen: suppose I told you I’ve long been thinking of getting you a new coat, to replace the one you’re wearing right now—. Anyway, let me see; sure, it’s completely rotten, look! It comes unstuck at the touch of a finger.” And the deputy finds a little hole into which he bores his finger. “It gives way, it doesn’t hold the least bit—look at this, hey, look!”

“Leave me alone! For God’s sake, what have I ever done to you? And leave my coat alone, too!”

“But good Lord, I promise to get you another coat tomorrow, I promise it in the presence of—let me see: one, two, four, seven—yes, seven people. What’s the matter with you this evening? You put on airs and act rude, wanting to trample us all underfoot. Oh yes, you do. Just because I touched your coat.”

“I beg your pardon, I didn’t mean to be rude. You know I would do you any favor whatsoever, but ...”

“All right, then do me the favor of sitting down.”

Miniman brushes his gray hair from his forehead and sits down.

“Good. And now, do me the favor of grinding your teeth a little.”

“No, that I won’t do.”

“You won’t, eh? Yes or no?”

“Good God, what harm did I ever do you? Can’t you just leave me alone? Why should I, of all people, be the laughingstock of everybody? That stranger over there is looking in our direction, I see; he’s keeping an eye on us and I dare say he’s laughing, too. Things never change; the very first day you came here as a deputy judge, Dr. Stenersen jumped on me and taught you right away to make fun of me, and now you’re teaching the gentleman over there to do the same. They learn it by turn, one after the other.”

“There, there now, yes or no?”

“No, I tell you!” Miniman screams, jumping up from his chair. But as if afraid he’d been too overbearing,1 he sits down again and adds, “I can’t even grind my teeth, you must believe me.”

“You can’t? Ha-ha, surely you can. You’re a whiz at grinding your teeth.”

“Upon my word, I can’t!”

“Ha-ha-ha! You’ve done it before, after all.”

“Yes, but then I was drunk. I don’t remember, my head was spinning. I was sick for two days afterward.”

“Right,” says the deputy. “You were drunk at the time, I admit that. Anyway, why are you blabbering about this in front of all these people? You wouldn’t catch me doing anything like that.”2

At this point the hotel keeper left the café. Miniman is silent; the deputy looks at him and says, “Well, what do you say? Don’t forget that coat.”

“I’m not forgetting it,” Miniman replies. “But I won‘t, and I can’t, drink any more, now you know.”

“You will and you can, both! Did you hear what I said? You will and you can, I said. Even if I have to pour it down your throat....” At these words the deputy rises with Miniman’s glass in his hand.