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The Major, who's ignorant of what's happened, still lays thar groanin' in his blankets, feelin' like a loser an' nursin' his remorse. "The first p'inter the Major gets of a new deal in his destinies is a grand crash as the entire teepee upheaves an' goes over, kerwallop! on its side, hurlin' the Major out through the canvas. It's the thoughtless Bowlaigs does it.
"You see, when a fellow gets married " that was how Heller always began. And Hürlin, when it was his turn, opened with "If I knew anybody who would lend me a thousand marks," or "Once upon a time, when I was down at Solingen." He had worked there for three months many years ago; but it was remarkable how many things had happened to him or come under his notice in Solingen.
"Smoked them," said Hürlin, haughtily. "Both?" "Yes, you old simpleton, both." "Both at once?" "No, you fool, first one and then the other." "Is that true?" "Why shouldn't it be true?" "Well," said the sailmaker, who did not believe the story, quickly, "then I'll tell you something. You're a dumb ox, and a big one at that." "Am I? And why?"
For the weaver was working busily by lamplight, paying no attention to him. Hürlin sat for a half hour at the empty table, listening to the click of Sauberle's machine and staring at the yellow flame of the hanging lamp, until he sank into an abyss of discontent, self-pity, envy, hatred and malice from which he neither sought nor found any way of escape.
When the workman began to swear, the old man smiled; when he pulled and pushed and twisted and knocked, when he began to sweat and almost fell off the ladder, the spectator felt no little satisfaction. Finally he went away, and came back in a quarter of an hour with an iron-saw. Hürlin perceived that now it was all over with the venerable ensign.
You can see at times two wild beasts locked in together looking at each other in just the same way; according to the mood of the observer, their gaze will seem dull, amusing, or terribly moving. What troubled Hürlin most was the humiliation he had experienced at the "Star" through Heller's instigation.
In the evening, when the sailmaker came from the mayor's garden, with, as usual, plenty to relate about the pear-cider and white bread and radishes he had had for his lunch, and how splendidly they had treated him, Hürlin also recounted his adventure with long-winded eloquence, to Heller's great envy. "And what have you done with the cigars?" he asked at once with interest.
When the latter fell into one of his furious attacks on the job, Hürlin stepped back a few paces as if alarmed and looked on scornfully as his comrade puffed and panted, retaining, however, just enough breath to reproach Hürlin for his laziness. "Look at him," he would cry, "look at him, the good-for-nothing loafer! You like that, don't you? to see other people doing your work!
Oh yes, the gentleman is a manufacturer. I believe you've been quite capable of sawing away four weeks on the same log!" Neither the offensiveness nor the truth of these reproaches stirred Hürlin up very much; but he did not let Heller get the better of him.
Neither had any dearer wish than to get the better of the other and make him feel his superiority; but if Hürlin had the better brain, the sailmaker was the more cunning and since the weaver took no side, neither could claim a real triumph over the other.
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