happening they are upon him. The first he knows about it is that he
is lying in the gutter, on his back, with all three on top of him.
He has fallen alongside of the curbstone and cannot move; he is
faint, too, as a result of his indiscretion; the two biggest boys
spread his arms wide open on the flagstones and press them down with
all their might, while the third ventures to deal with his face.
It is a carefully planned outrage, and all Pelle can do is to twist
his head round under the blows--and for once he is thankful for his
disgracefully fat cheeks.

Then, in his need, a dazzling apparition appears before him;
standing in the doorway yonder is a white baker's boy, who is
royally amused. It is no other than Nilen, the wonderful little
devil Nilen, of his schooldays, who was always fighting everybody
like a terrier and always came out of it with a whole skin. Pelle
shuts his eyes and blushes for himself, although he knows perfectly
well that this is only an apparition.

But then a wonderful thing happens; the apparition leaps down into
the gutter, slings the boys to one side, and helps him to his feet.
Pelle recognizes the grip of those fingers--even in his schooldays
they were like claws of iron.

And soon he is sitting behind the oven, on Nilen's grimy bed. "So
you've become a cobbler?" says Nilen, to begin with, compassionately,
for he feels a deucedly smart fellow himself in his fine white
clothes, with his bare arms crossed over his naked breast. Pelle
feels remarkably comfortable; he has been given a slice of bread and
cream, and he decides that the world is more interesting than ever.
Nilen is chewing manfully, and spitting over the end of the bed.