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On this occasion, as ill-luck would have it, the doctor kept them waiting longer than usual, and Bjarni, as host, could not well sit all the time without a word. At last, by way of saying something, he asked how the wool was getting on.

“Dry and packed three days ago,” answered Sera Daniel.

Bjarni’s eyes flashed, and a smile flickered for a moment over his wooden face.

Sera Daniel read that smile, and marked the scorn of it. But as the scorn, he knew, applied no less to the smiler than to himself he refrained, on principle, from taking offence.

Bjarni looked him straight in the face, and their eyes met. Then suddenly both realized that this innocent and haphazard attempt at casual conversation had opened up common ground between them, an unexpected community of interest where each had only thought to find the altogether unwished-for company of the other.

Bjarni did not quite know how to improve the opportunity at first. He decided on a gambit of innocent raillery.

“Yes, we’re ready to weigh it now, I suppose... that is, of course....”