Finnish orchid seemed amused

Afterwards, Hayden grumbled to himself. He recalled rumors that Dr. Kivi had no bracing Finnish blood in him at all, but was actually a German named Hans Schmuck. But to Hayden he was formidable. He had seen Kivi beat the local chess champion who, being named Perkins, could not conceivably rival a master who smelled of beer and gherkins. In Denver, Hayden had heard Kivi publicly affirm his faith:

"I am not going to let my clients haf all the pingpong tables and leetle antique furniture they vant, efen if I go broke and take to honest farming." That Augustinian creed had set all the Rocky Mountain architects debating, and enabled Kivi to charge an extra thousand dollars on every house.

Sinclair Lewis: World So Wide (1951)

Married to a white Finnish woman

Mr. Skagstrom, who was married to a white Finnish woman and who was half Swede, quarter Negro, quarter Chinese, with traces of Choctaw and Mexican—which made him one hundred per cent. African—manufactured excellent canoes. He was a pious Lutheran and he disapproved of what he called "all this vice and laziness that you find among so many colored folks." He felt pretty well about his generosity in employing as many Negroes as whites in his factory. He was a typical American businessman, except that he was less interested in race-questions than most of them, and he was glad to have Neil step into his accounting-room every Friday—at cut rates.

Sinclair Lewis: Kingsblood Royal

Finland then under his heel

"He accepted me as an accomplice, Sire."

"What did you offer?"

"A vigorous scheme. Your Majesty's revolt is to begin in Finland—where Sprengtporten is a landowner and where his regiment, the Nyland Dragoons, is at present, his intention is to take, by surprise, the fortress of Sveaborg—Finland then under his heel, he would sail to Sweden and meet your Majesty at Erstawir, and overcome Stockholm by a night storming, the Senate would be arrested, and a new constitution given to Sweden. Count Karl Scheffer is in this enterprise, it is not known to many beyond him and your Majesty's brothers." Toll turned his steady placid eyes, slightly narrowed with irony directly on the King. "Your Majesty still has sufficient power to deny this, to have me arrested—and disposed of."

Marjorie Bowen (writing as George R. Preedy): Nightcap and Plume

The Finlander drew another card

A young Finlander came into Montana one day,  and like other precocious youths fancied that he understood the game of poker. There was no  trouble finding a gentleman who was willing to afford him a little amusement, and who knew of a  retired room where the cards could be shufifled without molestation.

The game was strictly for cash, and progressed with varying fortune for about an hour. Then the tricky man concluded it was time to shake things up. So he provided himself with a full hand and gave the Finlander two pair. There was thirteen  dollars in the pot. He drew one card.

It was not intended that the Finlander should  have more than two pair, but the dealer made a botch and gave him an ace, making three aces and  two kings. The mistake was discovered in time, however, and the superfluous ace grabbed from his hand and destroyed. The Finlander drew another card, and th'is time he drew a king, making three kings and a pair of aces. When the dealer discovered that the greenhorn had him beaten out in spite of the crooked work, he settled matters by taking the pot anyway, and the final result was the Finlander had to be pried of¥ by the police.

Jack pots : stories of the great American game by Eugene Edwards

A little black-faced Finlander

To be made the object of ridicule by a little black-faced Finlander was more than Count Denissow could endure. He vanished forthwith, and when Selma, somewhat later, returned to her aunt's sitting-room, having resumed a normal appearance, she was received with marked coldness, not only by her kinswoman, but by the gentleman sitting with that lady. Not in the least depressed, she betook herself to her own room, and just as the Count was saying to the Doktorinna, 'I don't think I yet quite understand the Finnish type of girl,' a burst of music rang through the house. The Russian started, rose, and then sat down again, listening with a face that expressed delight and astonishment.

'As I live, the little girl is neither Finn nor Frenchwoman. She is a pure genius, and stands outside all countries. Who taught her to play like that, Doktorinna?'

'She has lessons,' the Doktorinna answered, with a fineness of idiom of which she was unconscious, 'from your countryman, Professor'

Appassionata. A musician's story. By Elsa D'Esterre-Keeling

A perfect pattern to the folk in Finland

One such summer evening surges up before me with a crimson smear across its sunlight. There was a Low Country fellow there, waist deep in schnapps, and a Finlander sucking strong beer like a hog. Meinheer and the Finn came to words and blows, and I, who was sitting astride of the railing staring, heard a shrill scream from the old man and a rattle as he dropped his fiddle, and then a flash and a red rain of blood on the table as my Finn fell with a knife in him, the Hollander's knife, smartly pegged in between the left breast and the shoulder. I declare that, even in my excitement at that first sight of blood drawn in feud, my boyish thought was half divided between the drunken quarrel and the poor old fiddler, all hunched together on the ground and sobbing dry-eyed in a kind of ecstasy of fear and horror. I heard afterwards that he had a son knifed to his death in a seaman's brawl, and never got over it. As for the Finn, they took him home and kept it dark, and he recovered, and may be living yet for all I know to the contrary, and a perfect pattern to the folk in Finland.

Marjorie, by Justin Huntly McCarthy

The big Finnish teamster

The teamster took kindly to this proposal, and began to walk slowly through the long storehouse. He looked up and down, right and left, seeking the item for which he had struggled, in vain. Behind him marched the office force, hoping for a possible revelation. On and on, they trod, until suddenly, in a far, cold corner of the great shed, the Finnieman halted, gazed for a moment incredulously, and then dancing wildly, cried, "There he iss, there he iss." His great mittened hands grasped the fore-quarter of a "side of pork" and he chortled, "See," he said, "it iss the 'hook'—the 'pik' I vanted."

A roar of laughter went up from the office crew, as the first clerk gasped, "Well, I'll be doggoned! It was pork he wanted—his 'hook' was a hog and his 'pik' was a pig." Whereupon, John* joined in the hilarity and hugged his 'hook' in fiendish glee.

Beyond the Sowdyhunk, by Stanley Foss Bartlett