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Updated: June 7, 2025
To this couple came a young laborer, Victor Pratteler, who had but recently stepped out of the narrow, securely guarded realm of hand labor into the open and surging world of the iron proletariat.
To those spirits belonged Pratteler. He still obstinately distrusted the leaders, and in his heart did not discard the motto: Everything is humbug. They made themselves so big with their "if" and "but," and they made you wait for them in order to appear necessary and powerful. But the individual man interested Victor keenly.
Höflinger did not allude with a single word to Victor's maiden speech. He did not even seem to have felt the pointed hint about childless people, or he bore him no grudge. That made Pratteler more angry with him. That long fellow had no temperament; that is why the couple had no children. Victor sulkily took up Spiele's sprinkler and deluged her lettuce plants until they were almost drowned.
Pratteler remained in the court, which he surveyed discontentedly, as the women and children slowly retired. Spiele, the tailor's daughter, suspected with her sensitive instinct that he was eager to express some opinion; so she busied herself with her wheel. When she thought it took him too long to say something, she turned around to bid him good-by.
Out of the collar rose a neck, long, thin and bare as a vulture's, and crowned by a round black wrangler's head of medium size. In an offhand manner and with slight embarrassment he touched his cap and said that he was Victor Pratteler. When Spiele did not immediately reply, he asked with some discomfort, whether he was at the Höflingers', and frowned.
"Think of it, Spiele, Pratteler did not want to leave us. I believe he had some scruples about leaving you alone with me." Spiele turned over a baby garment which she was sewing. "Well, it is not always a pleasure to be alone with you!" she replied with a laugh. "But I am going to try it once more."
When Höflinger and his new boarder and fellow-workman rode into the factory courts, they joined a host of other cyclists, and Pratteler's red necktie stood out significantly. Somebody asked Höflinger whether he had caught Garibaldi, and all who heard the remark began to laugh, while Pratteler frowned in silence.
"The individual is a humbug, Pratteler," he added with precision and knowingly nodded at him. "And yet you want to be a father," remarked Victor. "Your child will be nothing better." Höflinger grabbed his coat; he saw that all were getting ready and collecting in groups.
When he rode to the works beside him, Höflinger noticed the change in his wheel and nodded approvingly: "You are right to obey my wife's suggestion, Pratteler," said he, and added: "You should also give up your extravagant speeding and pedaling for hours at a stretch." Victor was silent. Later other workingmen joined them and greeted Höflinger eagerly.
But in the next working pause he told Pratteler that he could go with him to a meeting that night, if he cared. Victor went along. They entered a large hall, the walls of which were hung with all sorts of pictures, trophies and wreaths. It was the home of two singing societies, a brass band and a dramatic club, each having reserved one wall for its photographs and testimonials.
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