He took the boots and repaired them although it left him still
poorer; he knew too well what need was to refuse. This was the first
time that any one in the town had regarded him as an equal, and
recognized him at the first glance as a fellow-creature. Pelle
pondered over this; he did not know that poverty is cosmopolitan.

When he went out after the day's work he took a back seat; he went
about with the poorest boys and behaved as unobtrusively as possible.
But sometimes a desperate mood came over him, and at times he would
make himself conspicuous by behavior that would have made old Lasse
weep; as, for example, when he defiantly sat upon a freshly-tarred
bollard. He became thereby the hero of the evening; but as soon as
he was alone he went behind a fence and let down his breeches in
order to ascertain the extent of the damage. He had been running his
errands that day in the best clothes he possessed. This was no joke.
Lasse had deeply imbued him with his own moderation, and had taught
him to treat his things carefully, so that it seemed to Pelle almost
a pious duty. But Pelle felt himself forsaken by all the gods, and
now he defied them.

The poor women in the streets were the only people who had eyes for
him. "Now look at the booby, wearing his confirmation jacket on a
weekday!" they would say, and call him over in order to give him a
lecture, which as a rule ended in an offer to repair the damage. But
it was all one to Pelle; if he ran about out-of-doors in his best
clothes he was only doing as the town did. At all events he had
a shirt on, even if it was rather big! And the barber's assistant
himself, who looked most important in tail-coat and top-hat, and was
the ideal of every apprentice, did not always wear a shirt; Pelle
had once noticed that fact as the youth was swinging some ladies.