s pulled up over his jacket!

A parasite, a parasite!

He met lots of grown-up people who perhaps were parasites, but they
were not bawling on this account.

Parasite!

He saw a policeman, and caught his breath when he got by him, surprised
that the man hadn't arrested him.

Parasite!

Then came a street-sweeper with his cart, who seemed to rattle that
hateful word after him.

Our little sufferer remembered that the Halleman boys had once told
him what a fortune could be made by peddling peppermint drops. For
twenty-four stivers one could buy a big sack full. By selling so
and so many for a doit, the profit would be enormous. If one only
had the capital to begin! The Hallemans had calculated everything
very exactly; for they were not only very respectable, but also very
cunning. Cunningness and respectability usually go hand in hand. They
had said, all that was needed was the capital. They would attend to
laying in the stock, and would assume all responsibility for the sale
of the same. If Walter would chip in just a florin, they could raise
the rest and all would go well.

Parasite.... Parasite....

Walter slipped a florin from his mother's box of savings and brought
it to the Halleman boys, who were so remarkably respectable.

"Where did you get it?" asked Gustave, but careful not to give Walter
time to answer, or to fall into an embarrassing silence.

"Where did you get it?"--without any interrogation point--"fine! Franz
and I will each add one like it. That'll make twenty-four, and then
we'll buy the peppermints. There's a factory on the Rosengracht--such
a sack for four shillings. Franz and I will do everything. We'll
have more opportunity at school, you understand. Christian Kloskamp
has already ordered twelve; he'll pay after the holidays. We'll take
all the trouble; you needn't do anything, Walter--and then an equal
divide. You can depend upon it."

Walter went home and dreamed of unheard-of wealth. He would put a
dollar in his mother's savings-bank, and buy for Cecilia a lead pencil
from the man who had picked holes in the wood-work of his wagon with
them. So strong were they! That would be something entirely different
from those slate pencils; and if the tall Cecilia still wouldn't
have him, then--but Walter did not care to think further. There are
abysses along the path of fancy that we do not dare to sound. We see
them instinctively, close the eyes and--I only know that on that
evening Walte