Pinneberg put the baby on the floor, gave him a paper to look at, and prepared to clear up the room. It was a very large newspaper for such a small child, and it lasted quite a while, until the baby had spread it all over the floor. The room was very small, only nine feet by nine. It contained a bed, two chairs, a table, and the dressing table.

The baby had discovered the pictures on the inner pages of the paper and was chuckling with delight. “Yes,” said Pinneberg encouragingly. “Those are pictures, baby.” Whatever the baby took for a man, he called “Da-Da,” and the women were all “Ma-Ma.” He was delighted because there were so many people in the paper.

Pinneberg hung the mattresses out of the window to air, tidied the room and went into the kitchen. This was just a strip cut off the other room, nine feet long, and four and a half feet wide, the stove was about the smallest ever made, with only one oven. It was Bunny’s greatest affliction. Here too Pinneberg tidied and washed up and swept the floor, all of which he was happy to do. But his next occupation he did not enjoy at all; he set himself to peel potatoes and scrape carrots for dinner.

After a while Pinneberg had finished all he had to do. He went for a few moments into the garden and surveyed the landscape. The hut with its little glass-roofed porch seemed so tiny, the plot of land so large--almost a thousand square meters. But the soil looked in poor condition, no work had been done on it since Heilbutt had inherited the place, now three years ago. Perhaps the strawberries could still be saved, but a terrific amount of digging would be needed. The place was thick with weeds, couchgrass and thistles.

After the rain of the morning the sky had cleared, and there was a crisp feeling in the air. It would be good for the baby to get out. . . .

Slowly they set forth. Pinneberg did not go the usual way, he did not want to pass Krymna’s hut just then, there would only have been a quarrel which he was only too glad to avoid. But sometimes you couldn’t sidestep it. On these three thousand little plots of land hardly fifty persons were left this winter; anyone who could raise the money for a room, or get himself taken in by relatives, had fled to the city to escape the cold and dirt and solitude.

Those that stayed, the poorest, the most enduring and courageous, felt somehow that they ought to hang together, but unluckily they did not hang together at all. They were either Communists or Nazis, and thus involved in constant quarrels and conflicts.

Pinneberg had never been able to make up his mind one way or the other; he had thought that this would be an easy way out of the dilemma, but it often appeared to be the hardest.

. . . Then they turned down the Gartenstrasse, toward the house of Rusch the manufacturer, whose wife had owed Bunny six marks for three weeks. Pinneberg repeated to himself his promise that he would not make a scene.

The villa stood in a garden, a little way back from the street; it was a large and pleasant villa with a large and pleasant orchard behind it. It looked very good to Pinneberg.

Slowly he became aware that no one had answered his ring. He tried it again.

A window was flung up, and a woman called out: “Nothing for beggars.”

“My wife did some mending in your house,” said Pinneberg. “I have come to get the six marks.”

“Come again tomorrow.” The woman slammed the window.

Pinneberg stood for a while considering how much scope was left to him by his promise to Bunny. The baby was sitting quietly in his cart as if aware that his father was angry.

Pinneberg recalled the drudgery of eighteen hours of darning and mending. He pressed his thumb firmly against the bell-button. Several people passed and looked at him. The baby did not utter a sound.

The window was flung open again. “If you don’t get away from the bell at once I’ll call the police.”

Pinneberg removed his thumb and shouted back: “I wish you would. And I’ll tell the policeman.”

But the window was down again, and Pinneberg began to ring once more. He had always been a quiet and peaceable man, but these virtues had begun to collapse. As a matter of fact, he would have been in a very awkward position if a policeman had in fact appeared. But he did not care. It was very cold, too, for the baby to sit so long in his cart, but of that he did not think. Here stood the little man, Pinneberg, ringing the bell at the house of Rusch the manufacturer. He wanted his six marks and he intended to get them.

The hall door opened and the woman came out. She was wild with rage. She had two dogs on a leash, a black and a gray. The beasts had understood that here was an enemy, they tugged and growled ominously.

“I’ll set the dogs on you if you don’t go away at once.”

“I want six marks from you.”

The woman grew more furious when she saw the dogs were no help, as she could not really let them loose. They would have been over the railings in an instant and would have torn him to pieces. Pinneberg knew that as well as she did.

“You must be used to waiting,” she said.

“I am,” said Pinneberg, without moving.

“You’re one of the unemployed,” said the woman contemptuously; “I can see that quite well. I’ll put the police on you for not reporting your wife’s earnings.”

“All right,” said Pinneberg.

“And I’ll take the taxes and sick insurance off your wife’s six marks.”

“If you do,” said Pinneberg, “I’ll come along tomorrow and make you show me the receipts.”

“You wait until your wife comes and asks for some work!” shouted the woman.

“Six marks please,” said Pinneberg.

“You impertinent ruffian!” said the woman. “If my husband was here . . .”

“Yes, but he isn’t,” said Pinneberg.

Here at last were the six marks. There they lay, two three-mark pieces, on the top of the railing. Pinneberg could not pick them up at once, the woman had first to take the dogs back to the house.

“Thank you very much,” he said, taking off his hat.

The baby gurgled something. “Yes, money,” cried Pinneberg. “Money, little one. And now it’s home for us!”

He did not once look back at the woman and the villa, he slowly trundled off with the little cart; he felt dizzy and tired and sad.

The baby chattered and gurgled.