interludes, from an uncommon
workman to a common vagabond. His good and energetic wife had been
unable to save him; rather, the hopeless struggle had been too much for
her, though she seemed much stronger than he, and she had died--while
her good-for-nothing husband enjoyed rude health, played the fool for a
few more years, and then, after he was ruined and dependent, went
lazily on with no apparent diminution of strength toward a ripe old
age. Of course his conviction was that he had had bad luck with his
wife as well as with the sail-making business, and that his gifts and
performances had merited a better fate.

Huerlin had awaited this man's arrival with great eagerness, for he was
growing daily more utterly weary of being alone. But when Heller
appeared, the ex-manufacturer stood on his dignity and would scarcely
have anything to do with him. He even grumbled because Heller's bed was
put in the same room with his, although he was secretly glad of it.

After supper, since his comrade seemed disposed to be so grumpy, the
sailmaker took a book and began to read. Huerlin sat opposite him and
threw occasional glances of suspicious observation at him. Once, when
the reader could not help laughing at something amusing, the other was
very much tempted to ask him what it was. But as Heller looked up from
his book at the same moment, evidently willing to communicate the joke,
Huerlin assumed a gloomy expression and pretended to be wholly absorbed
in the contemplation of a fly that was crawling across the table.

So they sat the whole evening through. One read, looking up
occasionally as if ready for a chat, the other watched him incessantly,
only turning his eyes away haughtily when his companion happened to
raise his. The manager worked away busily until late. Huerlin's face
grew more and more sour and hostile, although he was really pleased to
think he would no longer be alone in his bedroom. When ten o'clock
struck, the manager spoke: "Now you might as well be going to bed, you
two." Both rose and went upstairs.

While they were slowly and stiffly undressing in the dimly-lighted
room, Huerlin thought the time had come to enter on an inquiry into the
qualities of the companion in misfortune whom he had so long desired.

"Well, there's two of us now," he remarked, throwing his waistcoat on a
chair.

"Yes," said Heller.

"It's a pig-sty, this," the other went on.

"Oh--is it?"

"_Is_ it? I ought to know! But now