nger but come with me and help me find him. Four eyes are better
than two, Rosenbom."

But the wooden man answered in a doleful voice: "I would most humbly beg
to be permitted to stay where I am. I look well and sleek because of the
paint, but I'm old and mouldy, and cannot stand moving about."

The bronze man was not one of those who liked to be contradicted. "What
sort of notions are these? Come along, Rosenbom!" Then he raised his
stick and gave the other one a resounding whack on the shoulder. "Does
Rosenbom not see that he holds together?"

With that they broke off and walked forward on the streets of
Karlskrona--large and mighty--until they came to a high gate, which led
to the shipyard. Just outside and on guard walked one of the navy's
jack-tars, but the bronze man strutted past him and kicked the gate open
without the jack-tar's pretending to notice it.

As soon as they had gotten into the shipyard, they saw before them a
wide, expansive harbor separated by pile-bridges. In the different
harbour basins, lay the warships, which looked bigger, and more
awe-inspiring close to, like this, than lately, when the boy had seen
them from up above. "Then it wasn't so crazy after all, to imagine that
they were sea-trolls," thought he.

"Where does Rosenbom think it most advisable for us to begin the
search?" said the bronze man.

"Such an one as he could most easily conceal himself in the hall of
models," replied the wooden man.

On a narrow land-strip which stretched to the right from the gate, all
along the harbour, lay ancient structures. The bronze man walked over to
a building with low walls, small windows, and a conspicuous roof. He
pounded on the door with his stick until it burst open; and tramped up a
pair of worn-out steps. Soon they came into a large hall, which was
filled with tackled and full-rigged little ships. The boy understood
without being told, that these were models for the ships which had been
built for the Swedish navy.

There were ships of many different varieties. There were old men-of-war,
whose sides bristled with cannon, and which had high structures fore and
aft, and their masts weighed down with a network of sails and ropes.
There were small island-boats with rowing-benches along the sides; there
were undecked cannon sloops and richly gilded frigates, which were
models of the ones the kings had used on their travels. Finally, there
were also the heavy, broad armour-plated ships with