s!"

"Do you want to have your ostrich-beak pulled?"

"You'd better try it on! Perhaps you don't know that we pay for you at
the blockmaker's. But I'll take care that you get thrashed until you beg
my pardon: a fellow who doesn't even know who his father is, and his
mother only wishes he had never been born!"

The last words were hardly out of his mouth when Nikolai sprang upon him
with both fists like a pair of sledge-hammers, and for a few blissful
seconds hammered out every trace of difference in birth and position.
Now he should feel "both his father and his mother!"

It was one of the board school's memorable and famous days, when the
wine was tapped from Ludvig Veyergang's nose in the snow; and even the
next day at dinner-time, two or three school classes of interested
spectators were searching for traces of red spots in the snow by the
lamp-post.

But, though he enjoyed great honour and admiration during the whole
afternoon at school, Nikolai knew that at home he would meet with an
utterly different interpretation of the event, news of which the Holmans
must already have received, surely and promptly, from the Veyergangs.

As he neared home, he went slower and slower. The thought of what might
await him, made his feet grow heavier and heavier, and when he had
separated from his last companion, he suddenly stopped and turned down
by the chandler's, where the street led away from, and not towards his
home.

* * * * *

It was now the third night Nikolai had been away, explained Mrs. Holman
to the policeman outside; and it was not much wonder if he expected the
reward he deserved, and felt his back smart. Lay hands on better
people's children! And the son of Consul Veyergang, his own benefactor,
too!

But where could he be? He could not possibly be in the timber-yard now,
at this time of year.

His stronghold was not easy to hit upon either, for it was something
very like looking in her own pocket. In common with other evil-doers,
Nikolai was driven by an irresistible desire--like moths that flutter
round a candle--to hide himself as near as possible to the place of his
fear and dread, where Mrs. Holman was, and where he could catch a
glimpse of Silla.

Holman lay at night and felt, through his intoxication, that things were
going wrong with Nikolai. He heard it dripping and dripping in the thaw
outside--splash, splash! The sound came in a monotonous chant:
Ni-ko-lai, Ni-