fixed on these sounds. Pelle wondered at it, but asked no questions.

Suddenly there came the sound of a chair being overturned. Morten rose
quickly and went in, shutting the door carefully behind him. Pelle heard
low voices--Morten's admonishing, and a thin, refractory, girlish voice.
"He's got a girl hidden in there," thought Pelle. "I'd better be off."

He rose and looked out of the large attic window. How everything had
changed since he first came to the capital and looked out over it from
Morten's old lodging! In those days he had had dreams of conquering it,
and had carried out his plan too; and now he could begin from the
beginning! An entirely new city lay spread out beneath him. Where he had
once run about among wharves and coal-bunkers, there now stood a row of
palatial buildings with a fine boulevard. And everything outside was
new; a large working-men's district had sprung up where there had once
been timber-yards or water. Below him engines were drawing rows of
trucks filled with ballast across the site for the new goods-station
yard; and on the opposite side of the harbor a new residential and
business quarter had grown up on the Iceland Quay. And behind it all lay
the water and the green land of Amager. Morten had had the sense to
select a high branch for himself like the nightingales.

He had got together a good number of books again, and on his writing-
table stood photographs of well-known men with autograph inscriptions.
To all appearances he seemed to make his way in the world of books.
Pelle took down some of Morten's own works, and turned over their leaves
with interest. He seemed to hear Morten's earnest voice behind the
printed words. He would begin to read him now!

Morten came in. "You're not going, are you?" he asked, drawing his hand