information that one of them had used the only skeleton they possessed
to pummel the other with, and that consequently only the thigh bones
were left unbroken.

What were we to do? We couldn't understand the matter at all. Soelling
scolded and cursed and the company was about to break up when we heard
some one coming noisily upstairs. The door was thrown open and a tall,
thin figure appeared on the threshold--our good friend Niels Daae.

He was a strange chap, this Niels Daae, the true type of a species
seldom found nowadays. He was no longer young, and by reason of a
queer chain of circumstances, as he expressed it, he had been through
nearly all the professions and could produce papers proving that he
had been on the point of passing not one but three examinations.

He had begun with theology; but the story of the quarrel between Jacob
and Esau had led him to take up the study of law. As a law student he
had come across an interesting poisoning case, which had proved to him
that a study of medicine was extremely necessary for lawyers; and he
had taken up the study of medicine with such energy that he had
forgotten all his law and was about to take his last examinations at
the age of forty.

Niels Daae took the story of our troubles very seriously. "Every pot
has two handles," he began. "Every sausage two ends, every question
two sides, except this one--this has three." (Applause.) "When we look
at it from the legal point of view there can be no doubt that it
belongs in the category of ordinary theft. But from the fact that the
thief took only the arms when he might have taken the entire skeleton,
we must conclude that he is not in a responsible condition of mind,
which therefore introduces a medical side to the affair. From a legal
point of view, the thief must be convicted for robbery, or at least
for the illegal appropriation of the property of others; but from the
medical point of view, we must acquit him, because he is not
responsible for his acts. Here we have two professions quarreling with
one another, and who shall say which is right? But now I will
introduce the theological point of view, and raise the entire affair
up to a higher plane. Providence, in the material shape of a patron of
mine in the country, whose children I have inoculated with the juice
of wisdom, has sent me two fat geese and two first-class ducks. These
animals are to be cooked and eaten this evening in Mathiesen's
establishment, and