The young delegate, who had gone to Berlin for a few days immediately after his election to consult with the leaders of his party, gave a strikingly cold and short salutation to his comrade, who, on his side, acknowledged it only by a slight nod.
"Back already from Berlin?" asked Landsfeld.
"I got here about an hour ago," answered Runeck. "I went straight to your house and heard there that I would be sure to find you at the 'Golden Lamb.'"
"To my house? That is a rare honor! I want to secure the hall for the day after to-morrow, since there turns out to be a necessity for a second mass meeting. As for the rest, we did not expect you back. Are you through with your business already?"
"Yes, for the time being only some preliminaries were to be settled. My permanent presence in Berlin will not be required for four weeks yet, when the sessions of the Reichstag begin, and so it seems to me I am more needed here just now than there."
"You are mistaken," declared Landsfeld. "We need you here no longer, now that your election has been carried. But I thought to myself that you would return as speedily as possible, when you heard that trouble was brewing for your beloved Odensburg. Yes, we have beaten it into the old man's brain at last that he is not infallible. Until now he was so inaccessible that nothing could come nigh him; now that he has to wrestle with us like the rest of his colleagues, it may go hard enough with him!"
"I rather think you have no occasion to triumph," said Egbert gloomily. "Dernburg has responded to your challenge by a wholesale discharge."
"Of course! That was to be expected of the obstinate old man, and we were perfectly prepared for it."
"Or rather, you have planned for it. And what now?"
"Well, it means bend or break. Either the old man withdraws his discharge of the workmen, or all his enterprises come to a standstill."