Pelle the Conqueror, vol 4 | Page 4

and he winked maliciously at Pelle as he stood playing with the coin so that it appeared to be two. "There you are; that's yours," he said, pressing the piece of money firmly into the boy's hand. "Take good care of it, so that you don't get a scolding from your mother."
The boy opened his empty hand in wonderment. "Give me my two-krone!" he said, smiling uncertainly.
"What the devil--I've given it you once!" said Ferdinand, pushing the boy aside roughly and beginning to walk on.
The boy followed him and begged persistently for his money. Then he began to cry.
"Give him his money!" said Pelle crossly. "It's not amusing now."
"Amusing?" exclaimed Ferdinand, stopping abruptly and gazing at him in amazement. "Do you think I play for small sums? What do I care about the boy! He may take himself off; I'm not his father."
Pelle looked at him a moment without comprehending; then he took a paper containing a few silver coins out of his waistcoat pocket, and handed the boy two krones. The boy stood motionless with amazement for a moment, but then, seizing the money, he darted away as quickly as he could go.
Ferdinand went on, growling to himself and blinking his eyes. Suddenly he stopped and exclaimed: "I'll just tell you as a warning that if it wasn't you, and because I don't want to have this day spoiled, I'd have cracked your skull for you; for no one else would have played me that trick. Do you understand?" And he stood still again and pushed his heavy brow close to Pelle's face.
Quick as thought, Pelle seized him by his collar and trousers, and threw him forcibly onto a heap of stones. "That's the second time to-day that you've threatened to crack my skull," he said in fury, pounding Ferdinand's head against the stones. For a few moments he held him down firmly, but then released him and helped him to rise. Ferdinand was crimson in the face, and stood swaying, ready to throw himself upon Pelle, while his gaze wandered round in search of a weapon. Then he hesitatingly drew the two-krone piece out of his pocket, and handed it to Pelle in sign of subjection.
"You may keep it," said Pelle condescendingly.
Ferdinand quickly pocketed it again, and began to brush the mud off his clothes. "The skilly in there doesn't seem to have weakened you much," he said, shaking himself good-naturedly as they went on. "You've still got a confounded hard hand. But what I can't understand is why you should be so sorry for a hobbledehoy like that. He can take care of himself without us."
"Weren't you once sorry too for a little fellow when some one wanted to take his money away from him?"
"Oh, that little fellow in the 'Ark' who was going to fetch the medicine for his mother? That's such a long time ago!"
"You got into difficulties with the police for his sake! It was the first time you were at odds with the authorities, I think."
"Well, the boy hadn't done anything; I saw that myself. So I hobbled the copper that was going to run him in. His mother was ill--and my old 'un was alive; and so I was a big idiot! You'll see you won't get far with your weak pity. Do we owe any one anything, I should like to know?"
"Yes, I do," said Pelle, suddenly raising his face toward the light. "But I can't say you've much to thank any one for."
"What confounded nonsense!" exclaimed Ferdinand, staring at him. "Have they been good to you, did you say? When they shut you up in prison too, perhaps? You're pretending to be good, eh? You stop that! You'll have to go farther into the country with it. So you think you deserved your house-of-correction turn, while another was only suffering the blackest injustice? Nonsense! They know well enough what they're doing when they get hold of me, but they might very well have let you off. You got together fifty thousand men, but what did you all do, I should like to know? You didn't make as much disturbance as a mouse in a pair of lady's unmentionables. Well-to-do people are far more afraid of me than of you and all your fellows together. Injustice! Oh, shut up and don't slobber! You give no quarter, and you don't ask any either: that's all. And by the way, you might do me the favor to take back your two-krone. I don't owe any one anything."
"Well, borrow it, then," said Pelle. "You can't go to town quite without money."
"Do take it, won't you?" begged Ferdinand. "It isn't so easy for you to get hold of any as for any one else, and it was a little too mean the way I got