Early in the mornings, before it was light, she would come over Knippelsbro [Footnote:  Bro, a bridge.] into the town, with a heavy basket upon each arm.  Out of the baskets stuck cabbage-leaves and carrot-tops, so that one would suppose that she made a business of buying vegetables from the peasants out at Amager, in order to sell them in Aabenraa and the surrounding quarters.

All the same, it was not a greengrocery business that she carried on, but, on the contrary, a little coal business:  she sold coals clandestinely and in small portions to poor folk like herself.

This evident incongruity was not noticed in Aabenraa; not even Policeman Frode Hansen seemed to find anything remarkable about Mam Hansen’s business.  When he met her in the mornings, toiling along with the heavy baskets, he usually asked quite genially:  ’Well, my little Mam Hansen, were the roots cheap to-day?’

And, if his greeting were less friendly than usual, he was treated to a half of lager later in the day.

This was a standing outlay of Madam Hansen’s, and she had one besides.  Every evening she bought a large piece of sugared Vienna bread.  She did not eat it herself; neither was it for the children; no one knew what she did with it, nor did anybody particularly care.

* * * * *

When there was no prospect of halves of lager, Policeman Frode Hansen promenaded his co-efficient with dignity up and down the street.

If he then happened to meet Trofast or any other of his canine friends, he always made a long halt, for the purpose of scratching him behind the ear.  And when he observed the great nonchalance with which the dogs comported themselves in the street, it was a real pleasure to him to sternly pounce upon some unhappy man and note down his full name and address, because he had taken the liberty of throwing an envelope into the gutter.

     II.

It was late in the autumn.  There was a dinner-party at the merchant’s; the family had been back from the country for some time.

The conversation flowed on languidly and intermittently, until the flood-gates were suddenly lifted, and it became a wild fos [Footnote:  Waterfall, cataract.] For down at the hostess’s end of the table this question had cropped up:  ’Can one call a lady a fine lady—­a real fine lady—­if it be known that on a steam-boat she has put her feet up on a stool, and disclosed small shoes and embroidered stockings?’ And, strangely enough, as if each individual in the company had spent half his life in considering and weighing this question, all cast their matured, decided, unalterable opinions upon the table.  The opposing parties were formed in an instant; the unalterable opinions collided with each other, fell down, were caught up again, and thrown with ever-increasing ardour.

Up at the other end of the table they took no part in this animated conversation.  Near the host there sat mostly elderly gentlemen, and however ardently their wives might have desired to solve the problem once for all by expressing their unalterable opinion, they were compelled to give up the idea, as the focus of the animated conversation was among some young students right down beside the hostess, and the distance was too great.