heart, and was failing. I managed to get into one of the streets where
honest thieves live, and went about as a colporteur, and it all went
very well. It would have been horribly mean if she'd died of hunger. And
we had a jolly good time for six months, but then she slipped away all
the same, and I can just tell you that I've never been in such low
spirits as the day they put her underground in the cemetery. Well, I
said to myself, there lies mother smelling the weeds from underneath, so
you can just as well give it all up, for there's nothing more to trouble
about now. And I went up to the office and asked for a settlement, and
they cheated me of fifty subscribers, the rogues!

"Of course I went to the police: I was stupid enough to do that at that
time. But they're all a lot of rogues together. They thought it wouldn't
do to believe a word that I said, and would have liked to put me in
prison at once; but for all they poked about they couldn't find a peg to
hang their hat upon. 'He's managing to hide it well this time, the sly
fellow!' they said, and let me go. But there soon was something, for I
settled the matter myself, and you may take your oath my employers
didn't get the best of the arrangement. You see there are two kinds of
people--poor people who are only honest when they let themselves be
robbed, and all the others. Why the devil should one go about like a
shorn sheep and not rob back! Some day of course there'll be a bust-up,
and then--'three years, prisoner!' I shall be in again before long."

"That depends upon yourself," said Pelle slowly.

"Oh, well, of course you can do _something_; but the police are
always getting sharper, and the man isn't born who won't fall into the
trap sooner or later."