"Don't you know that?" replied the mistress, astonished. "And yet I thought you were going to be his apprentice. He is a scissors-grinder. His cart stands here, in the shed."
Johannes felt his heart thumping again, for he heard coming the very one of whom they were speaking. He scarcely dared to look at him. But the woman exclaimed: "Good morning, Markus! That's a sly-boots of yours—he doesn't even know what your work is!"
Quite in his accustomed way Markus said: "Good morning, all! Is there a bowl of coffee for me, too? Well, there is time enough yet to understand about that. One may learn fast enough, turning the wheel."
"Will he have to turn?" asked the woman. "Then have you no footboard?"
Markus set his coffee down among the clean drinking-glasses, on a little table, and sat down beside it, while the maid was cutting the slices of bread.
Then Johannes and he regarded each other with a look full of complete, mutual understanding. In his earnest, musical voice Markus had spoken lightly, and easily, without conveying to the others any particular meaning. But that they listened eagerly was apparent. Whenever his voice was heard, others usually stopped speaking; and the least thing he said, in jest or in earnest, was listened to with respectful attention.
"Yes, you see," said Markus, "I still have a cart with a footboard. But nowadays there are much finer ones with window-glass upon them, and a big wheel which another has to turn."
"Gracious!" said the bar-mistress, "so you're getting up in the world, Markus! Sure, you've had a legacy, or a lucky lottery ticket."
"No, Vrouw Schimmel, but I thought this; your standing is good, of late, and as you have to go to the banker's now, with your money, you might loan me, say, a hundred and fifty guldens, and I'll repay the loan at the rate of a gulden a week. How will that do?"
The woman stopped working and laughed. The mistress laughed, too, and cried: "You're a regular Jew!" and, after having sauntered back and forth a while, she said: