"Who knocks?"
"Open the door, Julio; it is your companion Bernardo," was the reply in the same tongue.
"Of course, on the way you stopped at the Camel, and drank some pots of
Hamburg beer? Did you bring me as much as a pint?" asked the man with the
red beard. "Nothing? have you nothing? I have worked until I am exhausted;
I am dying of hunger, and no one thinks of me. Let me see the spring."
Saying these words, he took from his companion's hands a bent steel spring and examined it attentively, closing and opening it as if to judge of its form and power of resistance.
Bernardo was a deformed man of low stature; the projection on his back might be styled a hump—it was so prominent. His physiognomy denoted pusillanimity; but there was, at the same time, a malicious sparkle in his eye, and it was with a mocking smile that he contemplated the man with the red beard.
The latter said to him in a commanding tone: "The spring appears to be good. Go bring me a pint of Rhenish wine from the Saint George."
"You know well that our master has forbidden it. Let me go; the signor ordered me to return immediately to the factory."
"Get me the wine, or I will break this spring in a thousand pieces over your hump."
"Always threatening!" muttered Bernardo. "You know I am not wanting in good-will. I will go for the wine; give me the money."
"Money? I have not a farthing in my pocket. Lend me the price of this pint."