For little Findelkind had never come so
far as this before. As he stood on the bridge so dreaming, a hand
clutched him, and a voice said:
"A whole kreutzer, or you do not pass!"
Findelkind started and trembled.
A kreutzer! he had never owned such a treasure in all his life.
"I have no money!" he murmured, timidly,
"I came to see if I could get money for the poor."
The keeper of the bridge laughed.
"You are a little beggar, you mean? Oh, very well! Then over my
bridge you do not go.
"But it is the city on the other side?"
"To be sure it is the city; but over nobody goes without a
kreutzer."
"I never have such a thing of my own! never! never!" said
Findelkind, ready to cry.
"Then you were a little fool to come away from your home,
wherever that may be," said the man at the bridge-head. "Well, I
will let you go, for you look a baby. But do not beg; that is
bad."
"Findelkind did it!"
"Then Findelkind was a rogue and a vagabond," said the taker of
tolls.
"Oh, no--no--no!"
"Oh, yes--yes--yes, little sauce-box; and take that," said the
man, giving him a box on the ear, being angry at contradiction.
Findelkind's head drooped, and he went slowly over the bridge,
forgetting that be ought to have thanked the toll-taker for a
free passage. The world seemed to him very difficult. How had
Findelkind done when he had come to bridges?--and, oh, how had
Findelkind done when he had been hungry?
For this poor little Findelkind was getting very hungry, and
his stomach was as empty as was his wallet.
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