he can't be offended with me for the words I spoke. They were
not at all badly meant."

Instead of going straight on, and trying to get down to the dock, the
boy turned into a side street which led east. First and foremost, he
wanted to get away from the one who tramped after him.

But the next instant he heard that the bronze man had switched off to
the same street; and then the boy was so scared that he didn't know what
he would do with himself. And how hard it was to find any hiding places
in a city where all the gates were closed! Then he saw on his right an
old frame church, which lay a short distance away from the street in the
centre of a large grove. Not an instant did he pause to consider, but
rushed on toward the church. "If I can only get there, then I'll surely
be shielded from all harm," thought he.

As he ran forward, he suddenly caught sight of a man who stood on a
gravel path and beckoned to him. "There is certainly someone who will
help me!" thought the boy; he became intensely happy, and hurried off in
that direction. He was actually so frightened that the heart of him
fairly thumped in his breast.

But when he came up to the man who stood on the edge of the gravel path,
upon a low pedestal, he was absolutely thunderstruck. "Surely, it can't
have been that one who beckoned to me!" thought he; for he saw that the
entire man was made of wood.

He stood there and stared at him. He was a thick-set man on short legs,
with a broad, ruddy countenance, shiny, black hair and full black beard.
On his head he wore a wooden hat; on his body, a brown wooden coat;
around his waist, a black wooden belt; on his legs he had wide wooden
knee-breeches and wooden stockings; and on his feet black wooden shoes.
He was newly painted and newly varnished, so that he glistened and shone
in the moonlight. This undoubtedly had a good deal to do with giving him
such a good-natured appearance, that the boy at once placed confidence
in him.

In his left hand he held a wooden slate, and there the boy read:

_Most humbly I beg you,
Though voice I may lack:
Come drop a penny, do;
But lift my hat!_

Oh ho! the man was only a poor-box. The boy felt that he had been done.
He had expected that this should be something really remarkable. And now
he remembered that grandpa had also spoken of the wooden man, and said
that all the children in Karlskrona were so fond of him. And that must
have been true, for he, too, found it ha