He would get
it on paper, of course, not paid in cash, but let that be. Isak had
other things in his head just now.
"And you think she'll be pardoned?" he asked.
"Eh? Oh, your wife! Well, if there'd been a telegraph office in the
village, I'd have wired to Trondhjem and asked if she hadn't been set
free already."
Isak had heard men speak of the telegraph; a wonderful thing, a string
hung up on big poles, something altogether above the common earth. The
mention of it now seemed to shake his faith in Geissler's big words,
and he put in anxiously: "But suppose the King says no?"
Said Geissler: "In that case, I send in my supplementary material, a
full account of the whole affair. And then they _must_ set her free.
There's not a shadow of doubt."
Then he read over what he had written; the contract for purchase
of the land. Two hundred _Daler_ cash down, and later, a nice high
percentage of receipts from working, or ultimate disposal by further
sale, of the copper tract. "Sign your name here," said Geissler.
Isak would have signed readily enough, but he was no scholar; in all
his life he had got no farther than cutting initials in wood.
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