verns which 'open before the clock
strikes' they were already serving early refections of hot coffee and
schnapps; girls with hair hanging down their backs, after a wild night,
came out of the sailors' houses by Nyhavn, and sleepily began to clean
windows.

It was bitterly cold and raw, and those who had to cross Kongens Nytorv
hurried past Oehlenschlaeger, whom they had set outside the theatre,
bare-headed, with his collar full of snow, which melted and ran down
into his open shirt-front.

Now came the long, relentless blasts of steam-whistles from the
factories all round the town, and the little steamers in the harbour
whistled for no reason at all.

The work, which everywhere lay waiting, began to swallow up the many
small dark figures, who, sleepy and freezingly cold, appeared and
disappeared all round the town. And there was almost a quiet bustle in
the streets; some ran, others walked--both those who had to go down into
the coal steamers, and those who must up and gild the Emperor of
Russia's cupolas, and thousands of others who were being swallowed by
all kinds of work.

And waggons began to rumble, criers to shout, engines raised their
polished, oily shoulders, and turned their buzzing wheels; and little by
little the heavy, thick atmosphere was filled with a muffled murmur from
the collective work of thousands. The day was begun; joyous Copenhagen
was awake.

Policeman Frode Hansen froze even to his innermost co-efficient. It had
been an unusually bitter watch, and he walked impatiently up and down in
Aabenraa, and waited for Mam Hansen. She was in the habit of coming at
this time, or even earlier, and to-day he had almost resolved to carry
matters as far as a half lager or a cup of warm coffee.

But Mam Hansen came not, and he began to wonder whether it was not
really his duty to report her. She was carrying the thing too far; it
would not do at all any longer, this humbug with these cabbage-leaves
and that coal business.

Thyra and Waldemar had also several times peeped out into the little
kitchen, to see if their mother had come and had put the coffee-pot on
the fire. But it was black under the kettle, and the air was so dark and
the room so cold that they jumped into bed again.

* * * * *

When they opened the great gates of merchant Hansen's coalstore at
Kristianshavn, Trofast sat there and shamefacedly looked askance; it was
really a loathsome piece of work that