CHAPTER V.
AMONG THE UNEMPLOYED Nikolai was out of work, that was very certain.
It never entered his head to present himself at any other smithy: they all knew each other too well for that.

And even at barge-builder Hansen's, where he got a lodging up in the tool-loft, and his food on the days when he got a chance of doing something useful, they wanted to know now why he had left his trade.

As if that were any business of theirs! So Nikolai suddenly disappeared.
On the quay, the harbour and the steamers, a fellow with his hands could surely get on just as well as any other.
It was with fresh and dauntless courage, though with a stomach not overladen with food during the last few days, that he went down there.
He was received with a certain appreciative admiration.

He found that it was a well-known fact that he had had an encounter with the police, and had been sufficiently dexterous to get off without their being able to fix anything upon him; the news of such an exploit travels like wild-fire in that world, and spreads a halo around its subject.
And as long as he was supposed to be only an idler, or an apprentice who was airing himself and taking a day or two's holiday from the smithy, the shareholders in the different businesses down there were both agreeable and talkative.

But when--and that not once only--he suddenly turned to, and darted over the landing-stage from the steamer with a large trunk on his back and a traveller at his heels, past the cabs up to the hotel, they quite changed their tone.