"Of course," he said, "I have been promoted already; I am now foreman in my shop."
"And you earn plenty of money?"
"So much that we don't know what to do with it."
"Your Christel is an excellent housekeeper----"
"And washes and irons to that extent that our whole house smells of nothing but soap and flat-irons."
Klaus showed his teeth; I pressed his hand in token of sympathy with his happiness, though I had never been especially ravished by the perfumes he so highly prized; but now more urgently than ever I desired to know how this happy young pair ever made up their minds so cruelly to risk their good fortune.
"I told you already," answered Klaus, "that we never were quite happy. Wherever we went or stood, and above all when we were in real good humor about anything, the thought always came up: if he could only be here! And four weeks ago yesterday, when we had some Bierkaltschale[[7]]--no, no, we could stand it no longer."
"Some Bierkaltschale?" I asked, in some surprise.
"Yes; don't you know how you always used to have some made for you at the forge, in the summer-time, when you wanted to give yourself a treat? Christel often made it for you. Well, then, just four weeks ago we were drinking some--they have an excellent beer for it in Berlin, much better than ours, that was always a little bitter--and I was enjoying it, when Christel on a sudden let the ladle fall and began to howl, and I knew at once what she was thinking of, and then I began, and we kept on drinking and howling, and when we had finished, we both said together: It can't go on this way! So then we put our heads together----"
"As you did that evening when I met you on the heath?"