The little tailor, on the other hand, could not get over his astonishment at the number of clothes'-shops, for in some streets every third house seemed to be a tailor's workshop; when stopping suddenly before one of these, as if petrified, he stared at a small shield, upon which there was this notice, both in English and German, "Five hundred Journeymen wanted."
"Hallo!" he cried, "that's what I call a master. But by this and by that, he must pay good wages, if he can employ so many people! Hark ye, I'll go in and try."
"What are you going to be at inside, then, Meier?" asked Schmidt, of the tailor; "haven't you engaged to go with us, and actually paid for your share of the new farm?"
"Oh, that be hanged!" said the tailor; "if I could get work at such a master's, I should be much better off."
"That don't signify," said the brewer; "your word is your word, and you must come with us! Who else is to sew all our clothes?"
"Well," said the tailor, "but if brilliant prospects should present themselves to me here, the Committee would surely allow me to accept them; for to remain all one's life a poor journeyman tailor——"
"All that don't matter," replied the brewer; "you've paid your deposit, and go you must! This was the object of having all the articles written down, in order that, afterwards, nobody might do as they pleased."
"At all events, I'll ask the question," cried the little fellow, quickly; "a question can't hurt, and perhaps it may be of use hereafter."
With these words he walked in, accompanied by the others, who were curious to see the interior of such a shop, and he was not a little astonished to find the master a German, and moreover an Israelite, who in very polite terms asked him what he wanted, and what articles he would allow him to show him?