“Now be a good boy, Kalle,” says Madam Knoll, holding the broom behind her, “and go away when I tell you to.”
“No,” says Kalle from the stairs.
“Are you defying me, you impudent lazybones? Go away—and that quickly.” A warning thump with the broom on Kalle’s head. “Do you think it is any help to me to have you sit there?” Thump, thump. “Do you think folk will take the trouble to jam themselves against the wall past you when they want to come up to do some business with an old friend?” A heavy thump on Kalle’s red head.
“No,” says Kalle, not stirring.
“Well, then, I shall knock on the floor for your father.” Since Madam Knoll has had the rheumatism, it hurts her to go up and down stairs, so she calls Lindquist that way. He knows well what it means, darts out to the stairs and hauls Kalle by force into his room. This happens quite often, but really not many more customers come to Madam Knoll when Kalle isn’t sitting on the stairs than when he is.
Madam Knoll has lived in the tailor’s attic for seventeen years. She has thought of giving up her lodging every day in all these years, she says; but there is one thing that keeps her from moving, and that is that nowhere in the whole town could she find such a good warm floor for her own feet and for the tortoise’s, because Lindquist keeps a good fire both summer and winter to heat his irons for pressing.
One day, to my great astonishment, I met Madam Knoll and Policeman Weiby away up in Grand Street. Madam Knoll, you see, almost never goes down-stairs, even. Her face was as red as a boiled lobster and she talked incessantly as she limped along. Policeman Weiby’s under lip stuck out, and he toddled beside her with short mincing steps, for he’s an old man. Naturally, I joined them at once.
“They have stolen my tortoise,” said Madam Knoll. “Oh, that beautiful, poor, dear creature!”
“Who stole it?” I asked.
“Well, if I knew that,” said Madam Knoll angrily, “I shouldn’t have needed to get a policeman. Haven’t I walked with my bad legs all the way over here after Weiby?”