Pelle turned red. “I should like to be independent as soon as possible,” he said.
“Yes, yes, you can talk it over with the foreman; but no unionists here, mind that! We’ve no use for those folks.”
Pelle pressed his lips together and pushed the cloth wrapper into the breast of his coat in silence. It was all he could do not to make some retort; he couldn’t approve of that prohibition. He went out quickly into Kobmager Street and turned out of the Coal Market into Hauser Street, where, as he knew, the president of the struggling Shoemakers’ Union was living. He found a little cobbler occupying a dark cellar. This must be the man he sought; so he ran down the steps. He had not understood that the president of the Union would be found in such a miserable dwelling-place.
Under the window sat a hollow-cheeked man bowed over his bench, in the act of sewing a new sole on to a worn-out shoe. The legs of the passers- by were just above his head. At the back of the room a woman stood cooking something on the stove; she had a little child on her arm, while two older children lay on the ground playing with some lasts. It was frightfully hot and oppressive.
“Good day, comrade!” said Pelle. “Can I become a member of the Union?”
The man looked up, astonished. Something like a smile passed over his mournful face.
“Can you indulge yourself so far?” he asked slowly. “It may prove a costly pleasure. Who d’you work for, if I may ask?”
“For Meyer, in Kobmager Street.”
“Then you’ll be fired as soon as he gets to know of it!”
“I know that sure enough; all the same, I want to join the Union. He’s not going to tell me what I can and what I can’t do. Besides, we’ll soon settle with him.”