"There are millions in all this!" said Pelle at last, drawing a deep
breath. "Yes," said Morten standing beside him. "And it's all put
together by human hands--by the hands of working people!"

Pelle started. That was a wonderful idea. But it was true enough, if one
thought about it.

"But now it has fallen into very different hands!" he exclaimed,
laughing. "Yes, they've got it away from us by trickery, just as one
wheedles a child out of a thing," cried Morten morosely. "But there's no
real efficiency in anything that children do--and the poor have never
been anything more than children! Only now they are beginning to grow
up, look you, and one fine day they'll ask for their own back."

"It would go ill with us if we went and tried to take it for ourselves,"
said Pelle.

"Not if we were united about it--but we are only the many."

Pelle listened; it had never occurred to him that the question of
organization was so stupendous. Men combined, sure enough, but it was to
secure better conditions in their trade.

"You are like your father!" he said. "He always had big ideas, and
wanted to get his rights. I was thinking about him a little while ago,
how he never let himself be trampled on. Then you used to be ashamed of
him; but...."

Morten hung his head. "I couldn't bear the contempt of respectable