"Jumping and vaulting and climbing ropes and drilling in squads--what?"

"But isn't it--isn't that wicked?"

"Wicked! Hahaha! Wicked, did you say? So that's the way they look
at things here, is it? Well, well--well, well! Hahaha! Hand me that
matchbox, my boy. H'm!" He puffed away for a while in silence. Then,
suddenly:

"See here, boy. Did you know you'd a little sister?"

"Yes, I know."

"Half-sister, that is to say. I didn't quite know how it was myself. But
I may as well tell you, my boy, that I paid the same for you all along,
the same as now. Only I sent the money by your mother, and she--well,
she, poor girl, had another one to look after, and no father to pay for
it. So she made my money do for both. Hahaha! Well, poor girl, we
can't blame her for that. Anyhow, we'll have to look after that little
half-sister of yours now, I suppose, till she grows up. Don't you think
so yourself?"

Peer felt the tears coming. Think so!--indeed he did.

Next day Peer's father went away. He stood there, ready to start, in the
living-room at Troen, stiff felt hat and overcoat and all, and said,
in a tone like the sheriff's when he gives out a public notice at the
church door:

"And, by the way, you're to have the boy confirmed this year."