Part 71 (2/2)

”But that's Per Anker's son from Blaaholt!” cried Holm, when he had been standing a while on the quay and had caught sight of the man. ”What, are you leaving the country?”

”Yes, I've decided to do so,” said the man, in an undertone, pa.s.sing his hand over his face.

”And I thought you were doing so well! Didn't you go to Ostland, and didn't you take over a hotel there?”

”Yes, they enticed me out there, and now I've lost everything there.”

”You ought to have considered--considering costs nothing but a little trouble.”

”But they showed me false books, which showed a greater surplus than there really was. s.h.i.+powner Monsen was behind the whole affair, together with the brewer from the mainland, who had taken the hotel over in payment of outstanding debts.”

”But how did big folks like that manage to smell you out?” Holm scratched his head; he didn't understand the whole affair.

”Oh, they'd heard of the ten thousand, of course, which I'd inherited from my father. They throw their nets out for sums like that, and one day they sent an agent to see me. Ten thousand was just enough for the first instalment, and now they have taken the hotel over again. Out of compa.s.sion, they let me keep this trash here.” He suddenly turned his face away and wept; and then his wife came swiftly up to him.

Holm drew Pelle away. ”They'd rather be rid of us,” he said quietly; and he continued to discuss the man's dismal misfortune, while they strolled out along the mole. But Pelle was not listening to him. He had caught sight of a little schooner which was cruising outside, and was every moment growing more restless.

”I believe that's the Iceland schooner!” he said at last. ”So I must go back.”

”Yes, run off,” said Holm, ”and many thanks for your guidance, and give my respects to La.s.se and Karna.”

On the harbor hill Pelle met Master Jeppe, and farther on Drejer, Klaussen, and Blom. The Iceland boat had kept them waiting for several months; the news that she was in the roads quickly spread, and all the shoemakers of the whole town were hurrying down to the harbor, in order to hear whether good business had been done before the gangway was run out.

”The Iceland boat is there now!” said the merchants and leather-dealers, when they saw the shoemakers running by. ”We must make haste and make out our bills, for now the shoemakers will be having money.”

But the skipper had most of the boots and shoes still in his hold; he returned with the terrifying news that no more boots and shoes could be disposed of in Iceland. The winter industry had been of great importance to the shoemakers.

”What does this mean?” asked Jeppe angrily. ”You have been long enough about it! Have you been trying to open another agency over there? In others years you have managed to sell the whole lot.”

”I have done what I could,” replied the captain gloomily. ”I offered them to the dealers in big parcels, and then I lay there and carried on a retail trade from the s.h.i.+p. Then I ran down the whole west coast; but there is nothing to be done.”

”Well, well,” said Jeppe, ”but do the Icelanders mean to go without boots?”

”There's the factories,” replied the captain.

”The factories, the factories!” Jeppe laughed disdainfully, but with a touch of uncertainty. ”You'll tell me next that they can make shoes by machinery--cut out and peg and sew and fix the treads and all? No, d.a.m.n it, that can only be done by human hands directed by human intelligence.

Shoemaking is work for men only. Perhaps I myself might be replaced by a machine--by a few cog-wheels that go round and round! Bah! A machine is dead, I know that, and it can't think or adapt itself to circ.u.mstances; you may have to shape the boot in a particular way for a special foot, on account of tender toes, or--here I give the sole a certain cut in the instep, so that it looks smart, or--well, one has to be careful, or one cuts into the upper!”

”There are machines which make boots, and they make them cheaper than you, too,” said the skipper brusquely.

”I should like to see them! Can you show me a boot that hasn't been made by human hands?” Jeppe laughed contemptuously. ”No; there's something behind all this, by G.o.d! Some one is trying to play us a trick!” The skipper went his way, offended.

Jeppe stuck to it that there was something uncanny about it--the idea of a machine making boots was enough to haunt him. He kept on returning to it.

”They'll be making human beings by machinery too, soon!” he exclaimed angrily.

”No,” said Baker Jorgen; ”there, I believe, the old method will survive!”

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