At the end of the apprenticeship the young industrialist becomes a hired worker, perhaps in his old master's shop, perhaps somewhere else.[115] He is engaged and paid by the week, and often changes employers many times while in this stage of his career. The guild protects him against gross exploitation, but his hours are long--from 5 A.M. to 7 P.M. during the summer months. Finally, if he has led a moral life, proved a good workman, and accumulated a small capital, he may apply to the syndics for admission as a full master himself. A kind of examination takes place. If, for example, he has been a weaver he must produce an extremely good bolt of cloth and show skill in actually making and adjusting the parts of his loom. This ordeal passed, he pays a fee (divisible between the city and the guild) and undergoes an initiation, full of horseplay and absurd allegory. Thus a candidate for the position of baker must solemnly present a "new pot full of walnuts and wafers" to the chief syndic; and upon the latter's accepting the contents, the candidate deliberately "breaks the pot against the wall"--a proclamation that he is now a full member of the guild. The last act is of course a grand feast--the whole fraternity guzzling down tankard after tankard at the expense of the new "brother." There is one quarter of the town which the St. Aliquis visitors hardly dare to enter. Thrust away in miserable hovels wedged against one angle of the walls live the "accursed race"--the Jews. Here are dark-haired, dark-eyed people with Oriental physiognomies. They are exceedingly obsequious to Christians, but the latter do not trust them. These bearded men with earrings, these women with bright kerchiefs of Eastern stuffs, all seem to be conducting little shops where can be bought the cheapest furniture, household utensils, and particularly old clothes in Pontdebois. In this quarter, too, is a small stone building which Conon and his followers wonder that the echevins suffer to exist--a very ancient synagogue, for the Jewish colony is as old as the town. The few Christians who have periled their souls by venturing inside say the windows are very small and that the dark, grimy interior is lighted by dim lamps. Here also are strange ancient books written in a character which no Gentile can interpret, but by whispered report containing fearful blasphemies against the Catholic faith. [Sidenote: The Jews and Money Lending]