"Gentlemen," said Stosse Rutschow, "I am a journeyman carpenter, and I never get more than nine groschen a day, the summer through, and one groschen of that goes to the master; I would rather be a day-laborer with Herr Pomuchelskopp."
"Donkey!" cried Schultz the carpenter, "have you worked at all, this whole spring? You have been loafing about!"
"Quiet! quiet!" cried the people.
"Gentlemen!" Pomuchelskopp went on, "this is the way our day-laborers are situated, and look at their treatment! Any day-laborer can give notice at any time, and seek another place; isn't that honest? isn't that satisfactory?"
"Krischan, speak, it is time!" again cried the voice in the rear.
"Gentlemen!" said Pomuchelskopp, drawing to a close, "I am heartily agreed with this noble union in its sentiments, and on this subject of poverty in the small towns, and you shall see--I am not a rich man, but what I can do shall be done. And now, gentlemen, I ask your assistance and protection; if city and country are true to each other there will be order, and we can arrange and settle everything in a peaceable manner, in this noble Reformverein. Long live the Rahnstadt Reformverein!"
"Hurrah! Hurrah! Long live the Reformverein!" echoed from every corner of the hall.
"Long live Herr Pomuchelskopp!" cried several voices, and Muchel, with a bow and a very friendly demeanor, went back to his place.
As he turned round, the speaker's stand was already occupied, and Zachary Bräsig's red face shone upon him, not like a peaceful sun or moon, but like a fiery meteor, which the Lord sends into the world as a sign of his righteous judgments.
"Fellow-citizens!" he cried, and made a grimace at his fellow-citizens, as if he had devoured two of them for breakfast that morning, and would now select a nice, fat one for his supper,--"Fellow-citizens! if the Herr Zamwell Pomuchelskopp had stayed quietly at home in Gurlitz, I would not have said a word; if he had not pretended to be friends with me, here in this very hall, and had not on this grand father-land platform," here he struck on the cooling-vat, "told such confounded lies, I would not say a word."