To this Adler replied that he would do what he liked, when he liked, and refused to listen at all to the demand for reinstatement of those he had dismissed. By the following Monday things had calmed down at the factory. Pastor Boehme came to see Adler, with the intention of inducing him to give way to some of the reasonable demands of the workpeople. But he encountered an unexpected resistance; the mill-owner declared that, if he had ever had intentions of giving way to his workpeople's demands, he no longer had any, that he would rather close the factory than give in. "Do you know, Martin," he said, "that they have got us talked about in the newspapers? The comic papers have ridiculed Ferdinand, and it has been said that Gosławski died from overwork and because there was no doctor." "There is some truth in that," answered Boehme. "There is no truth whatsoever in it," shouted the mill-owner. "I have worked much harder than Gosławski, every German workman works harder; and as for the doctor, he might just as well have been absent from the factory to visit a patient, as he was from town at that particular moment." "The bone-setter might have been there at any rate," observed the pastor. Adler gave no answer. He walked up and down the room with long strides, breathing hard. "Let us go into the garden," he proposed. "Johann, take a bottle of hock into the summer-house." The pleasant coolness in the summer-house near the pond, the freshness of the wind rustling in the trees, and perhaps the glass of good wine, gradually soothed Adler. Pastor Boehme looked at him over the rim of his gold spectacles, and seeing him in a better mood, resolved to return to the attack. "Well," he said, clinking his glass against Adler's, "a man who keeps such excellent wine as this cannot have a bad heart. Let them off their fines, Gottlieb, take them all on again, and install a doctor.... Your health!" "I will drink your health, Martin, but I promise nothing of the sort," repeated the mill-owner, although his anger had somewhat cooled. The pastor shook his head, and muttered: "H'm! it's a pity you are so obstinate!" "I cannot sacrifice my interest to sentiments. If I give them a thousand roubles to-day, they will want a million to-morrow." "You exaggerate," said Boehme, annoyed; "my advice is that, if you can settle this business for ten thousand roubles, give fifteen thousand rather, and make an end of it." "It is at an end already," said Adler. "The worst of them are gone, and the rest know that there is discipline here. If I were as soft-hearted as you, they would trample me under foot." The pastor said nothing, but began to throw things on to the surface of the pond--first a cork, then bits of wood broken off from a stick. "My dear Martin, what are you throwing rubbish on the water for?" asked Adler. The pastor pointed towards the pond, where the things he had thrown upon the water were making circles that grew larger and larger.