Pelle seated himself upon a bench, and absently followed their reckless
play, while his thoughts went back to his own careless boyhood. A boy of
ten or twelve took the lead in breakneck tricks, shouting and
commanding; he was the chief of the band, and maintained the leadership
with a high hand. His face, with its snub nose, beamed with lively
impudence, and his cap rested upon two exceptionally prominent ears.

The boys began to make of the stranger a target for their exuberant
spirits. In dashing past him they pretended to lose control of their
machine, so that it almost went over his foot; and at last the leader
suddenly snatched off his cap. Pelle quietly picked it up, but when the
boy came circling back with measured strokes as though pondering some
fresh piece of mischief he sprang up and seized him by the collar.

"Now you shall have a thrashing, you scamp!" he said, lifting him off
his bicycle. "But it'll be just as well if you get it from your parents.
What's your father's name?"

"He hasn't got a father!" cried the other boys, flocking round them
threateningly. "Let him go!"

The boy opened his lips to give vent to a torrent of bad language, but
stopped suddenly and gazed in terror at Pelle, struggling like a mad
thing to get away. Pelle let him go in surprise, and saw him mount his
bicycle and disappear howling. His companions dashed after him like a
flight of swallows. "Wait a little, Lasse Frederik!" they cried. Pelle
stood a little while gazing after them, and then with bent head walked
slowly into Norrebro Street.