Pure comedy, this delightful novel follows an engaging reprobate makes good, despite himself. Ove Rolandsen, the telegraph operator in an isolated fishing village in northern Norway, is a man of sudden passions, a cheerful rogue fond of girls and alcohol. He constantly hatches ambitious schemes to the despair of his fiancée, 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?