"St Olav's Place, No. 2."

"Really?" He knew every stone in St Olav's Place. There was a fountain, some lamp-posts, a few trees; he remembered all of it. "What number do you live in?"

Desirous to put an end to this, I got up. But my notion about the newspaper had driven me to my wits' end; I resolved to clear the thing up, at no matter what cost.

"When you cannot read the paper, why——"

"In No. 2, I think you said," continued the man, without noticing my disturbance. "There was a time I knew every person in No. 2; what is your landlord's name?"

I quickly found a name to get rid of him; invented one on the spur of the moment, and blurted it out to stop my tormentor.

"Happolati!" said I.

"Happolati, ay!" nodded the man; and he never missed a syllable in this difficult name.

I looked at him with amazement; there he sat, gravely, with a considering air. Before I had well given utterance to the stupid name which jumped into my head the man had accommodated himself to it, and pretended to have heard it before.