“Well, did you never see one before? Don’t you know everybody has them?”
“Not their own photos, you ass! If anybody sees that, you’ll never hear the last of it.”
Peer took up the photograph and flung it under the bed. “Well, it was a rubbishy thing,” he muttered. Evidently he had made a mistake. “But what about this?”—pointing to a coloured picture he had nailed up on the wall.
Klaus put on his most manly air and bit off a piece of tobacco plug. “Ah! that!” he said, trying not to laugh too soon.
“Yes; it’s a fine painting, isn’t it? I got it for fourpence.”
“Painting! Ha-ha! that’s good! Why, you silly cow, can’t you see it’s only an oleograph?”
“Oh, of course you know all about it. You always do.”
“I’ll take you along one day to the Art Gallery,” said Klaus. “Then you can see what a real painting looks like. What’s that you’ve got there—English reader?”
“Yes,” put in Peer eagerly; “hear me say a poem.” And before Klaus could protest, he had begun to recite.
When he had finished, Klaus sat for a while in silence, chewing his quid. “H’m!” he said at last, “if our last teacher, Froken Zebbelin, could have heard that English of yours, we’d have had to send for a nurse for her, hanged if we wouldn’t!”