Old Skipper Lau rises by the aid of his two sticks and hands Pelle
the twist; his jaws are working like a mill, and all his limbs are
twisted with gout. "Is it for some one lying-in?" he asks slyly.

Pelle breaks off the stem of the clay pipe, lest it should stick out
of his pocket, boards the salvage steamer, and disappears forward.
After a time he reappears from under the cabin hatchway, with a
gigantic pair of sea-boots and a scrap of chewing tobacco. Behind
the deck-house he bites a huge mouthful off the brown Cavendish,
and begins to chew courageously, which makes him feel tremendously
manly. But near the furnace where the ship's timbers are bent he
has to unload his stomach; it seems as though all his inward parts
are doing their very utmost to see how matters would be with them
hanging out of his mouth. He drags himself along, sick as a cat,
with thumping temples; but somewhere or other inside him a little
feeling of satisfaction informs him that one has to undergo the most
dreadful consequences in order to perform any really heroic deed.

In most respects the harbor, with its stacks of timber and its
vessels on the slips, is just as fascinating as it was on the day
when Pelle lay on the shavings and guarded Father Lasse's sack. The
black man with the barking hounds still leans from the roof of the
harbor warehouse, but the inexplicable thing is that one could ever
have been frightened of him. But Pelle is in a hurry.

He runs a few yards, but he must of necessity stop when he comes to
the old quay. There the "strong man," the "Great Power," is trimming
some blocks of granite. He is tanned a coppery brown with wind and
sun, and his thick black hair is full of splinters of granite; he
wears only a shirt and canvas trousers, and the shirt is open on