“Somebody—yes—he was a rascal! What did it matter to me that he had a lot of journeymen? I didn’t cheat them out of their wages!”
Now Garibaldi is annoyed; he takes off his apron, puts his hat on sideways, and he goes into the town.
“Now he’s going to look for a sweetheart!” says the young master; “he has a sweetheart in every town.”
At eight he comes sailing into the workshop again. “What, still sitting here?” he says to the apprentices. “In other parts of the world they have knocked off work two hours ago. What sort of slaves are you to sit crouching here for fourteen hours? Strike, damn it all!”
They look at one another stupidly. “Strike—what is that?”
Then comes the young master. “Now it would do one good to warm one’s eyes a bit,” says Garibaldi.
“There’s a bed made up for you in the cutting-out room,” says the master. But Garibaldi rolls his coat under his head and lies down on the window-bench. “If I snore, just pull my nose,” he says to Pelle, and goes to sleep. Next day he makes two pairs of kid boots with yellow stitching—for little Nikas this would be a three days’ job. Master Andres has all his plans ready—Garibaldi is to be a partner. “We’ll knock out a bit of wall and put in a big shop-window!” Garibaldi agrees—he really does for once feel a desire to settle down. “But we mustn’t begin too big,” he says: “this isn’t Paris.” He drinks a little more and does not talk much; his eyes stray to the wandering clouds outside.
On the third day Garibaldi begins to show his capacities. He does not do much more work, but he breaks a heavy stick in two with one blow as it flies through the air, and jumps over a stick which he holds in both hands. “One must have exercise,” he says restlessly. He balances an awl on the face of a hammer and strikes it into a hole in the sole of a boot.
And suddenly he throws down his work. “Lend me ten kroner, master,” he says; “I must go and buy myself a proper suit. Now I’m settled and a partner in a business I can’t go about looking like a pig.”
“It will be better for you to get that finished,” says the master quietly, pushing Garibaldi’s work across to little Nikas. “We shan’t see him again!”