Garibaldi raises his head. “Well, one didn’t come here to sit about and idle!” he cries gaily. “Plenty to do, master?”
“There’s not much doing here, but we’ve always work for you,” replies Master Andres. “Besides, we’ve had an order for a pair of wedding-shoes, white satin with yellow stitching; but we haven’t properly tackled it.” He gives little Nikas a meaning glance.
“No yellow stitching with white satin, master; white silk, of course, and white edges.”
“Is that the Paris fashion?” asks Master Andres eagerly. Garibaldi shrugs his shoulders. “Don’t let us speak of Paris, Master Andres; here we have neither the leather nor the tools to make Parisian shoes; and we haven’t the legs to put into them, either.”
“The deuce! Are they so fashionable?”
“Fashionable! I should say so! I can hold the foot of a well-grown Parisian woman in the hollow of my hand. And when they walk they don’t touch the pavement! You could make shoes for a Parisian girl out of whipped cream, and they’d hold together! If you were to fit her with a pair of ordinary woman’s beetle-crushers she’d jump straight into the sewer!”
“Well, I’m damned!” The master is hastily cutting some leather to shape. “The devil she would!”
Never did any one make himself at home more easily; Garibaldi draws a seat up to the table and is at once in full swing. No rummaging about after tools; his hand finds his way to the exact spot where the thing required lies, as though an invisible track lay between them. These hands do everything of themselves, quietly, with gentle movements, while the eyes are elsewhere; gazing out into the garden, or examining the young master, or the work of the apprentices. To Pelle and the others, who always have to look at everything from every side in turn, this is absolutely marvelous. And before they have had time to look round Garibaldi has put everything in order, and is sitting there working and looking across the room at the master, who is himself sewing to-day.
And then Jeppe comes tumbling in, annoyed that no one has told him of Garibaldi’s arrival. “’Day, master—’day, craft-master!” says Garibaldi, who stands up and bows.
“Yes,” says Jeppe self-consciously, “if there were craft-masters still, I should be one. But manual work is in a wretched case to-day; there’s no respect for it, and where shall a man look for respect if he doesn’t respect himself?”