So bold a speech could not fail to turn the eyes of all present upon me. Young Herr Windfang measured me with his eyes from head to foot, a process which, as he was of rather small stature, occupied some time; the familiar smile came out of the forest of Roland's whiskers, and played quite gaily under the thatch of his moustache; for, if the matter was as I said, the fault fell neither upon him nor any one of his subordinates, but went back to the Technical Bureau--a very gratifying thing, under the circumstances, for the worthy head-foreman. The foreman, who had a high opinion of me, nodded, as if to say: There you have it. The workmen looked at each other and smiled.
"Why do you say that, sir?" asked Herr Windfang, coming up to me, and taking another hasty measurement of me.
"Because I am convinced of the fact," I answered.
"That is a piece of arrogance on your part, sir!" cried the engineer.
"You and the other gentlemen are not infallible, like the pope!" I retorted.
Here the men laughed loudly.
"We will speak of this matter again," said Herr Windfang.
"We will indeed," was my reply.
The irascible young man hurried out of the building in a rage, but the head-foreman shook me by the hand and said: "Thank you, Hartwig; you took him down handsomely;" and the men accompanied me across the yard, loudly taking my part, and giving me to understand that my cause was their own. Klaus and Kurt, who had come out of another shop, now joined me. They had heard of the little skirmish I had had with the Technical Bureau, and wanted to know the facts. I did not go into details, for I was eager to get home to maintain the gauntlet I had thrown. I had all the designs of the machine, in the construction of which I had helped throughout; the necessary works of reference were in my possession; my lamp was trimmed, and a little fire burning on my hearth, as the nights were still chilly.
So I spent all the cool spring night measuring, calculating, comparing, constructing, and when the first rosy morning clouds rose over the throng of roofs and chimneys I had found what I was seeking, and fixed it in irrefragable formulae and figures. There it lay upon my table in a careful drawing, with the measurements all noted, and there it stood fast in my head, and from my head a sense of triumph hurried to my heart, which began to beat violently. But I checked my rising pride by remembering that I owed it all to him, and I fancied I saw the face of my beloved teacher smiling upon me, and tears sprang to my eyes. Then I went back to my room and slept an hour or so, as deeply and sweetly as I ever slept in my life.