Nikolai stood with his cap in his hand, looking down at the floor.  He had a habit of drawing the skin of his forehead up and down when he was meditating.  In the broad, young face with the large features, the grey eyes into which there sometimes came a peculiar look, and the cock’s comb, of a tinge between zinc and copper, the police inspector’s penetrating and—­after many year’s practice—­not easily deceived eye saw the marks of one who would probably in the future often give occupation to the police.

“In order to exclude the possibility of conferences with the other apprentices in his room,” he dictated for the record, “considering that the accused has manifested mala fides by an attempt to escape, as well as by his untruthful conduct and denials under examination, he will, for the present, be placed under arrest.”

As the words of the order were read out, there were a few involuntary contractions of the muscles in Nikolai’s face, which was damp with perspiration; there quivered in it the poor man’s curse, at never having a way of escape; a false step, and he is caught, a lost dollar, and he comes before the court.

After another examination Nikolai was acquitted for want of evidence.

The morning when the prison door closed behind him, he slunk down the street with a feeling that all the windows on both sides were looking at him; it was anything but the gait of one who can let his honesty’s sun shine once more.

Down at his lodging at Mrs. Olsen’s he found his few things put ready in the cupboard under the stairs to be fetched away, and a message was left that his place in the garret was occupied by some one else.

He did not ask why.  Mrs. Olsen’s silence hurt him more than if she had cried aloud about people who drew on her “an examination and search of the house, and other disturbances.”

And then he had to go down and show himself at the forge again—­to Haegberg the master, and Anders Berg, and the journeymen, and all the apprentices.

It was with uncertain steps and stopping time after time.  What did Anders Berg think, he wondered.

In a fit of despondency he half turned.  But he must do it.  So he held up his head and began to whistle.  But as he neared the coal-begrimed wooden palings of the work-yard the whistling ceased, and he was in a cold perspiration when he entered the gate.

Without saying a word he went to the coal-bin and began to lift some bars of pig-iron which had to be moved aside.  While he did so, no one either greeted or spoke to him.

Anders Berg had an iron in the furnace, and it was not until he and another man had finished hammering it out, that he came up to Nikolai and said: 

“I was sure you would come back again.  Here’s some work for you; you can file these three keys.”

Whereupon Nikolai was placed at one of the vices, and was soon busily at work with both coarse and fine files.