We tramped three days and found no work, but had to pay for our food and
drink, getting poorer every day.
“How much have you got left, and how much have I got left? We'll never
get any great way at this rate,” said Falkenberg. And he threw out a
hint that we'd soon have to try a little stealing.
We talked it over a bit, and agreed to wait and see how things turned
out. Food was no difficulty, we could always get hold of a fowl or so at
a pinch. But ready money was the thing we really needed, and that we'd
have to get. If we couldn't manage it one way, we'd have to manage
another. We didn't set up to be angels.
“I'm no angel out of heaven alive,” said Falkenberg. “Here am I now,
sitting around in my best clothes, and they no better than another man's
workaday things. I can give them a wash in a stream, and sit and wait
till they're dry; if there's a hole I mend it, and if I chance to earn a
bit extra some day, I can get some more. And that's the end of it.”
“But young Erik said you were a beggar to drink.”
“That young cock. Drink--well, of course I do. No sense in only
eating.... Let's look about for a place where there's a piano,” said
Falkenberg.
I thought to myself: a piano on a place means well-to-do folk; that's
where he is going to start stealing.
In the afternoon we came to just such a place. Falkenberg had put on my
town clothes beforehand, and given me his sack to carry so he could walk
in easily, with an air. He went straight up to the front steps, and I
lost sight of him for a bit, then he came out again and said yes, he was
going to tune their piano.
“Going to _what?_”
“You be quiet,” said Falkenberg. “I've done it before, though I don't go
bragging about it everywhere.”
He fished out a piano-tuner's key from his sack, and I saw he was in
earnest.