their things, in the dull hope that something would happen, a hope of
which experience never quite deprives the poor.

After they had stood there a long time something really did happen. Out
of Norrebro Street came two men dashing along at a tremendous pace with
a four-wheeled cart of the kind employed by the poor of Copenhagen when
they move--preferably by night--from one place to another. One of the
men was at the pole of the cart, while the other pushed behind and, when
the pace was at its height, flung himself upon his stomach on the cart,
putting on the brake with the toes of his boots upon the road so as to
twist the cart into the gutter. Upon the empty cart sat a middle-aged
woman, singing, with her feet dangling over the side; she was big and
wore an enormous hat with large nodding flowers, of the kind designed to
attract the male sex. The party zig-zagged, shouting and singing, from
one side of the street to the other, and each time the lady shrieked.

"_There's_ a removing cart!" said Lasse Frederik, and as he spoke
the vehicle pulled up in the gutter just in front of them.

"What are you doing, Thorvald?" said one of the men; then, staring
straight into Ellen's face, "Have you hurt your eye?"

The woman had jumped down from the cart. "Oh, get out of the way, you
ass!" she said, pushing him aside. "Can't you see they've been turned
out? Is it your husband that's chucked you out?" she asked, bending
sympathetically over Ellen.

"No, the landlord's turned us out!" said Lasse Frederik.

"What a funny little figure! And you've got nowhere to sleep to-night?