to have our rights, that we are!" Then the police began to drive the
onlookers away; at each onset they fell back a few steps, hesitating,
and then stood still, laughing. Pelle received a blow in the back; he
turned quickly round, stared for a moment into the red face of a
policeman, and went his way, muttering and feeling his back.

"Did he hit you?" asked an old woman. "Devil take him, the filthy lout!
He's the son of the mangling-woman what lives in the house here, and now
he takes up the cudgels against his own people! Devil take him!"

"Move on!" ordered the policeman, winking, as he pushed her aside with
his body. She retired to her cellar, and stood there using her tongue to
such purpose that the saliva flew from her toothless mouth.

"Yes, you go about bullying old people who used to carry you in their
arms and put dry clouts on you when you didn't know enough to ask....
Are you going to use your truncheon on me, too? Wouldn't you like to,
Fredrik? Take your orders from the great folks, and then come yelping at
us, because we aren't fine enough for you!" She was shaking with rage;
her yellowish gray hair had become loosened and was tumbling about her
face; she was a perfect volcano.

The police marched across the Knippel Bridge, escorted by a swarm of
street urchins, who yelled and whistled between their fingers. From time
to time a policeman would turn round; then the whole swarm took to its
heels, but next moment it was there again. The police were nervous:
their fingers were opening and closing in their longing to strike out.
They looked like a party of criminals being escorted to the court-house
by the extreme youth of the town, and the people were laughing.