n his coat collar, a grasp that included the
skin, felt himself dragged up and, without a pause, half carried, half
flung, out of the smithy door.

It was Anders Berg, who had exerted his power to rescue him, and
who--still only slightly relaxing his hold--led him out of the gate.

It was his farewell to the smithy.

"I'll just tell you something," exclaimed Anders Berg later, when the
commotion had subsided; he was still red in the face and spoke loudly,
while he hammered cold.

"There's come a wrong bend in Nikolai; but it isn't his fault!"

The hammer rang on the iron.

Nikolai did not take a lodging anywhere that evening; he was too bruised
and dirty for that, his clothes too torn and ragged, and, more than
anything else, he felt too sore to meet people now that he had left the
smithy in such a way.

When night fell, he had once more taken up his familiar quarters in one
of the stacks of planks down at the timber-yard. There, in one of the
deep square spaces he lay and looked up at the stars and thought how
entertaining the world had become!

CHAPTER V

AMONG THE UNEMPLOYED

Nikolai was out of work, that was very certain.

It never entered his head to present himself at any other smithy: they
all knew each other too well for that. And even at barge-builder
Hansen's, where he got a lodging up in the tool-loft, and his food on
the days when he got a chance of doing something useful, they wanted to
know now why he had left his trade. As if that were any business of
theirs!

So Nikolai suddenly disappeared.

On the quay, the harbour and the steamers, a fellow with his hands could
surely get on just as well as any other.

It was with fresh and dauntless courage, though with a stomach not
overladen with food during the last few days, that he went down there.

He was received with a certain appreciative admiration. He found that it
was a well-known fact that he had had an encounter with the police, and
had been sufficiently dexterous to get off without their being able to
fix anything upon him; the news of such an exploit travels like
wild-fire in that world, and spreads a halo around its subject.

And as long as he was supposed to be only an idler, or an apprentice who
was airing himself and taking a day or two's holiday from the smithy,
the shareholders in the different businesses down there were both
agreeable and talkative. But when--and that not once only--he suddenly
turned to, and darted