"You're right, Brother; the devil take them, one and all, odd and even. But now let her go, old man, and tell us how you feel. Not a bit the way you usually do? Oh ho! And how does the little tadpole look? Everything in the right place? Nose, mouth, arms, legs? Nothing wrong anywhere? Everything in order: straps and legs, upper, vamp, heel and sole? Well pitched, nailed, and neatly polished?"
"Everything as it should be, Brother," cried the happy father, rubbing his hands. "A prize boy! May God bless us in him! Oh, Nik'las, I wanted to say a thousand things to you, but I choke too much in my throat; everything about me goes round——"
"Let it go as it will; when the cat is thrown down from the roof she has to take time to collect herself," said Master Grünebaum. "The wife is doing well, I suppose?"
"Yes, thank God. She behaved like a heroine; an empress couldn't have done better."
"She is a Grünebaum," said Nikolaus with pride, "and in case of necessity the Grünebaums can clench their teeth. What name are you going to have the boy called by, Anton?"
The father of the new-born child passed his lean hand over his high, furrowed forehead and stared out of the window into space for a few moments. Then he said:
"He shall be christened after three fellow-craftsmen. He shall be called Johannes like the poet in Nuremberg, and Jakob like the highly honored philosopher of Goerlitz, and the two names shall be to him as two wings on which to rise from the earth to the blue sky and take his share of light. But as a third name I will give him Nikolaus so that he may always know that he has a true friend and protector on earth, one to whom he can turn when I am no longer here."
"I call that a sentence with a head full of sense and reason, and a clumsy, ridiculous tail. Give him the names and it will be an honor for all three of us, but keep away from me with those old foolish notions of death. You're not fat, to be sure, and you couldn't exactly knock an ox down with your bare fist either; but you can draw the pitch-thread through the leather for many a long year yet, you ruminating bookworm."
Master Unwirrsch shook his head and changed the subject, and the two brothers-in-law discussed this and that with each other till it had grown perfectly dark in the storeroom.
Somebody knocked at the door, and Master Grünebaum called: