learning!"

"Those are books about us, and how the new conditions are coming, and
how we must make ready for them."

"Ah, you've got the laugh of me," said Pelle. "In a moment of depression
you've got your book-learning to help you along. But we other chaps can
just sit where we are and kick our heels." Morten turned to him hastily.

"That's the usual complaint!" he cried irritably. "A man spits on his
own class and wants to get into another one. But that's not the point at
stake, damn it all! We want to stay precisely where we are, shoemakers
and bakers, all together! But we must demand proper conditions! Scarcely
one out of thousands can come out on top; and then the rest can sit
where they are and gape after him! But do you believe he'd get a chance
of rising if it wasn't that society needs him--wants to use him to
strike at his own people and keep them down? 'Now you can see for
yourself what a poor man can do if he likes!' That's what they tell you.
There's no need to blame society.

"No, the masses themselves are to blame if they aren't all rich men!
Good God! They just don't want to be! So they treat you like a fool, and
you put up with it and baa after them! No, let them all together demand
that they shall receive enough for their work to live on decently. I say
a working man ought to get as much for his work as a doctor or a
barrister, and to be educated as well. That's my Lord's Prayer!"

"Now I've set you off finely!" said Pelle good-naturedly. "And it's just
the same as what your father was raving about when he lay dying in the
shed. He lay there delirious, and he believed the ordinary workman had