Pelle sat there getting angrier and angrier at his finicking tone. Why the devil couldn’t he bluster like a proper man instead of sitting there and making his damned allusions? But if he wanted that sort of foolery he should have it! “Ah! your people are leaving you?” he said, in an interested manner.
“They are,” said Meyer, and he looked surprised. Pelle’s tone made him feel uncertain. “And they are playing tricks on me; they don’t keep to their engagements, and they keep my messengers running about to no purpose. Formerly every man came to get his work and to deliver it, but now I have to keep messengers for that; the business can’t stand it.”
“The journeymen have had to run about to no purpose—I myself have worked for you,” replied Pelle. “But you are perhaps of opinion that we can better bear the loss of time?”
Meyer shrugged his shoulders. “That’s a condition of your livelihood— its conditions are naturally based on order. But if only I could at least depend on getting hands! Man, this can’t go on!” he cried suddenly, “damn and blast it all, it can’t go on, it’s not honorable!”
Little Lasse gave a jump and began to bellow. Ellen came hurrying in and took him into the bedroom.
Pelle’s mouth was hard. “If your people are leaving you, they must surely have some reason for it,” he replied; he would far rather have told Meyer to his face that he was a sweater! “The Union can’t compel its members to work for an employer with whom perhaps they can’t agree. I myself even have been dismissed from a workshop—but we can’t bother two Unions on those grounds!” He looked steadily at his opponent as he made this thrust; his features were quivering slightly.
“Aha!” Meyer responded, and he rubbed his hands with an expression that seemed to say that—now at last he felt firm ground under his feet. “Aha—so it’s out at last! So you’re a diplomatist into the bargain—a great diplomatist! You have a clever husband, little lady!” He turned to Ellen, who was busying herself at the sideboard. “Now just listen, Herre Pelle! You are just the man for me, and we must come to an arrangement. When two capable men get talking together something always comes of it— it couldn’t be otherwise! I have room for a capable and intelligent expert who understands fitting and cutting. The place is well paid, and you can have a written contract for a term of years. What do you say to that?”
Pelle raised his head with a start. Ellen’s eyes began to sparkle, and then became mysteriously dark; they rested on him compellingly, as though they would burn their purpose into him. For a moment he gazed before him, bewildered. The offer was so overpowering, so surprising; and then he laughed. What, what, was he to sell himself to be the understrapper of a sweater!
“That won’t do for me,” he replied.
“You must naturally consider my offer,” said Meyer, rising. “Shall we say three days?”