Up The Baltic Part 27

"How is it?" inquired Laybold.

"First rate; that's the diet for me."

"Very good," said the waiter.

"You don't mean to say you like that stuff, Scott."

"The proof of the pudding is the eating of the bag. I do like it, even better than 'finkel.'"

"I don't believe it. No one with a Christian stomach could eat such stuff."

"You judge by your own experience. I say it is good. Yours isn't a Christian stomach, and that's the reason you don't like it."

"You are a heathen, Scott."

"Heathen enough to know what's good."

"Some more finkel, sir?" suggested the waiter.

"No more finkel for me," replied Scott, whose head was beginning to whirl like a top.

"Better take some more," laughed Laybold, who was in the same condition.

"I can't stop to take any more; I'm hungry," replied Scott, who continued to devour the various viands on the table, till his companion's patience was exhausted.

"Come, Scott, we shall be late at the landing."

"We won't go home till morning," chanted the boozy student.

"I will go now;" and Laybold stood up, and tried to walk to the door--a feat which he accomplished with no little difficulty.

"Don't be in a hurry, my boy. Come and take some finkel."

"I don't want any finkel."

"Then come and pay the bill. I shall clean out this concern if I stay any longer."

"How much, waiter?" stammered Laybold.

"One riksdaler."

"Cheap enough. I should have been broken if they charged by the pound for what I ate."

"That's so," added Laybold, as he gave the waiter an English sovereign, and received his change in paper.

"Now, my boy, we'll go to sea again," said Scott, as he staggered towards the door. "See here, Laybold."

"Well, what do you want?" snarled the latter.

"I'll tell you something, if you won't say anything about it to any one."

"I won't."

"Don't tell the princ.i.p.al."

"No."

"Well, then, we're drunk," added Scott, with a tipsy grin.

"You are."

"I am, my boy; I don't know a bob-stay from a bowling hitch. And you are as drunk as I am, Laybold."

"I know what I am about."

"So do I know what you are about. You are making a fool of yourself.

Hold on a minute," added Scott, as he seated himself on a bench before a shop.

"Come along, Scott."

"Not for Joseph."

"We shall be left."

"That's just what I want. I'm not going to present myself before the princ.i.p.al in this condition--not if I know it."

Laybold, finding that it was not convenient to stand, seated himself by the side of his companion. Presently they discovered a party of officers on their way to the boats, and they staggered into a lane to escape observation. The two students, utterly vanquished by "finkel,"

did not appear at the landing, and the boats left without them.

CHAPTER XI.

ON THE WAY TO THE RJUKANFOS.

"What may the Rjukanfos be?" asked Clyde Blacklock, after his courier had started on his return to Christiania.

"O, it's a big thing," replied Sanford. "You can bet high on it."

"Doubtless I can; but is it a mountain, a river, or a lake?"

"'Pon my word, I don't know. Here, Norway!" he shouted to Ole, who was with the rest of the party.

"I'm here, Mr. c.o.xswain," replied the waif.

"What's the Rjukanfos? You told me we ought to go there; but I'll be hanged if I know whether it's a lake or a river."