Breakfast consisted of a portion of coffee and bread-and-butter and porridge. Madam Stolpe could not find her fine new silver coffee- service, which her children had given her on her silver-wedding day. “I must have put it away,” she said.
“Well, well, that’ll soon be found again, mother!” said Stolpe. “Now we shall soon have better times; many fine things will make their appearance again then, we shall see!”
“Have you been to the machine-works this morning, father-in-law?” asked Pelle.
“Yes, I’ve been there. But there is nothing more for the pickets to do. The employers have quartered all the men in the factory; they get full board and all there. There must be a crowd of foreign strike-breakers there—the work’s in full swing.”
This was an overwhelming piece of news! The iron-masters had won the first victory! This would quickly have a most depressing effect on the workers, when they saw that their trade could be kept going without them.
“We must put a bridle on them,” said Pelle, “or they’ll get off the course and the whole organization will fall to pieces. As for those fellows in there, we must get a louse under their shirts somehow.”
“How can we do that when they are locked in, and the police are patrolling day and night in front of the gates? We can’t even speak to them.” Stolpe laughed despairingly.
“Then some one must slink in and pretend he’s in want of employment!”
Stolpe started. “As a strike-breaker? You’ll never in this life get a respectable man to do that, even if it’s only in jest! I wouldn’t do it myself! A strike-breaker is a strike-breaker, turn and twist it how you will.”
“A strike-breaker, I suppose, is one who does his comrades harm. The man who risks his skin in this way deserves another name.”