Pure comedy, this delightful novel follows an engaging reprobate who makes good, despite himself. Ove Rolandsen, a telegraph operator in an isolated fishing village in northern Norway, is a man of sudden passion, a cheerful rogue fond of girls and alcohol. He constantly hatches ambitious schemes to the despair of his fiancee, Marie, housekeeper at the vicarage. When a plan to manufacture glue from fish waste lands him in trouble, is his feckless career over or could fortune, for once, be on his side.