In other respects, Frode Hansen was not very dangerous of approach.  He was even looked upon as one of the most harmless of police-constables; he very rarely reported a case of any kind.  All the same, he stood well with his superiors, for when anything was reported by others, no matter what, if they only asked Frode Hansen, he could always make some interesting disclosure or other about it.

In this way the world went well with him; he was almost esteemed in Aabenraa and down Vognmagergade.  Yes, even Mam Hansen sometimes found means to stand him a half of lager beer.

And she had certainly little to give away.  Poverty-stricken and besotted, she had enough to do to struggle along with her two children.

Not that Mam Hansen worked or tried to work herself forward or upward; if she could only manage to pay her rent and have a little left over for coffee and brandy, she was content.  Beyond this she had no illusions.

In reality, the general opinion—­even in Aabenraa—­was that Mam Hansen was a beast; and, when she was asked if she were a widow, she would answer:  ‘Well, you see, that’s not so easy to know.’

The daughter was about fifteen and the son a couple of years younger.  About these, too, the public opinion of Aabenraa and district had it that a worse pair of youngsters had seldom grown up in those parts.

Waldemar was a little, pale, dark-eyed fellow, slippery as an eel, full of mischief and cunning, with a face of indiarubber, which in one second could change its expression from the boldest effrontery to the most sheepish innocence.

Nor was there anything good to say about Thyra, except that she gave promise of becoming a pretty girl.  But all sorts of ugly stories were already told about her, and she gadded round the town upon very various errands.

Mam Hansen would never listen to these stories; she merely waved them off.  She paid just as little attention to the advice of her female friends and neighbours, when they said: 

’Let the children shift for themselves—­really, they’re quite brazen enough to do it—­and take in a couple of paying lodgers.’

‘No, no,’ Mam Hansen would reply; ’as long as they have some kind of a home with me, the police will not get a firm grip of them, and they will not quite flow over.’

This idea, that the bairns should not quite ‘flow over,’ had grown and grown in her puny brain, until it had become the last point, around which gathered everything motherly that could be left, after a life like hers.

And therefore she slaved on, scolded and slapped the children when they came late home, made their bed, gave them a little food, and so held them to her, in some kind of fashion.

Mam Hansen had tried many things in the course of her life, and everything had brought her gradually downward, from servant-girl to waitress, down past washerwoman to what she now was.