"I'll take you along one day to the Art Gallery," said Klaus. "Then
you can see what a real painting looks like. What's that you've got
there--English reader?"

"Yes," put in Peer eagerly; "hear me say a poem." And before Klaus could
protest, he had begun to recite.

When he had finished, Klaus sat for a while in silence, chewing his
quid. "H'm!" he said at last, "if our last teacher, Froken Zebbelin,
could have heard that English of yours, we'd have had to send for a
nurse for her, hanged if we wouldn't!"

This was too much. Peer flung the book against the wall and told the
other to clear out to the devil. When Klaus at last managed to get a
word in, he said:

"If you are to pass your entrance at the Technical you'll have to have
lessons--surely you can see that. You must get hold of a teacher."

"Easy for you to talk about teachers! Let me tell you my pay is twopence
an hour."

"I'll find you one who can take you twice a week or so in languages and
history and mathematics. I daresay some broken-down sot of a student
would take you on for sevenpence a lesson. You could run to that,
surely?"

Peer was quiet now and a little pensive. "Well, if I give up butter, and
drink water instead of coffee--"