imitation morocco.

"That's from the Emperor's new slippers," he said, as he shared the
pieces among the children. Then the youngsters laughed until their
throats began to wheeze.

Pelle was just the same as of old, except that he was more upright and
elastic in his walk, and had grown a little fair moustache. His
protruding ears had withdrawn themselves a little, as though they were
no longer worked so hard. His blue eyes still accepted everything as
good coin, though they now had a faint expression that seemed to say
that all that happened was no longer to their liking. His "lucky curls"
still shone with a golden light.

The narrow streets lay always brooding in a dense, unbearable atmosphere
that never seemed to renew itself. The houses were grimy and crazy;
where a patch of sunlight touched a window there were stained bed-
clothes hung out to dry. Up one of the side streets was an ambulance
wagon, surrounded by women and children who were waiting excitedly for
the bearers to appear with their uneasy burden, and Pelle joined them;
he always had to take part in everything.

It was not quite the shortest way which he took. The capital was quite a
new world to him; nothing was the same as at home; here a hundred
different things would happen in the course of the day, and Pelle was
willing enough to begin all over again; and he still felt his old
longing to take part in it all and to assimilate it all.

In the narrow street leading down to the canal a thirteen-year-old girl
placed herself provocatively in his way. "Mother's ill," she said,