A week before St Rochus, Knoups went to the brewer in the town to order the kermis beer for the dancing-tent as usual. There was no brewery at Haffert, or Knoups would certainly not have gone outside the village.
“I have nothing but new beer for you, Master Knoups,” said the brewer; “you will find there’s going to be sharp competition this year.”
“How so?” asked Knoups.
“Why, you know, don’t you, that Stamel-Joob has rented the piece of land just opposite your house, on the other side of the Haffert road?”
Knoups nodded an affirmative.
“Stammering Joob is going into partnership with Crippled Manes, and they mean to get a big dancing-tent over from Prussia, and set it up there.”
The landlord of the “Sun” stared at the brewer with all his eyes. He was vainly seeking for arguments to combat his own inner conviction that Stammering Joob the never-sober host of the “City of Algiers,” and Crippled Manes the recruiting-sergeant, who also did a good business as a kind of broker in procuring substitutes for unwilling conscripts, were two dangerous opponents, and capable of anything.
“Where should they get the money from?” he suddenly exclaimed.
The brewer shrugged his shoulders.
Mathis became lost in thought for some minutes, and at last whispered, looking at his purveyor with flashing eyes,—