In one or two of the shop windows could be
discerned a light glimmering feebly as through the thickest fog. All
the ordinary sights and sounds of morning--the vehicles plying for hire,
the cracking of whips, the cries of the fish and fruit vendors--all were
gone. The deathly stillness was broken only by a clangour of the town
clock, tolling the hours into a darkened world.
Half a dozen adventurous spirits had gathered together at the Club.
They called themselves adventurous. As a matter of fact they were
scared out of their wits and had gone there merely with a view to
leaning on each other for mutual support and courage. There was no
whisky drinking that morning, no cards, no scandal-mongering. They sat
round a table under an acetylene lamp, anxiously listening to a young
professor from Christiania who claimed to be versed in the higher
mathematics and was then occupied in calculating, by means of the
binomial theorem, how long it would take for the whole town of Nepenthe
to be submerged under ashes up to the roofs--presuming all the buildings
to be of equal height.
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