Jörgen Kofod, as a rule, came clumping in with great wooden shoes, and Jeppe used to scold him. “One wouldn’t believe you’ve got a shoemaker for a brother!” he would say crossly; “and yet we all get our black bread from you.”
“But what if I can’t keep my feet warm now in those damned leather shoes? And I’m full through and through of gout—it’s a real misery!” The big baker twisted himself dolefully.
“It must be dreadful with gout like that,” said Bjerregrav. “I myself have never had it.”
“Tailors don’t get gout,” rejoined Baker Jörgen scornfully. “A tailor’s body has no room to harbor it. So much I do know—twelve tailors go to a pound.”
Bjerregrav did not reply.
“The tailors have their own topsy-turvy world,” continued the baker. “I can’t compare myself with them. A crippled tailor—well, even he has got his full strength of body.”
“A tailor is as fine a fellow as a black-bread baker!” stammered Bjerregrav nervously. “To bake black bread—why, every farmer’s wife can do that!”
“Fine! I believe you! Hell and blazes! If the tailor makes a cap he has enough cloth left over to make himself a pair of breeches. That’s why tailors are always dressed so fine!” The baker was talking to the empty air.
“Millers and bakers are always rogues, everybody says.” Old Bjerregrav turned to Master Andres, trembling with excitement. But the young master stood there looking gaily from one to the other, his lame leg dangling in the air.
“For the tailor nothing comes amiss—there’s too much room in me!” said the baker, as though something were choking him. “Or, as another proverb says—it’s of no more consequence than a tailor in hell. They are the fellows! We all know the story of the woman who brought a full-grown tailor into the world without even knowing she was with child.”