"Look here," said Sandu, "you go on and say I have come but that I am waiting till they have finished dinner." The apprentice went in and told the master that a workman was outside, but would not come in till the master had got up from the table. "Tell him to come into the house." But his wife interrupted him with: "Leave him out there. Who knows what sort of a creature he is if he does not venture to show his face inside! Let me have my dinner in peace." The husband, a well-built man, with a round, red face and kind blue eyes, felt if he said any more his wife would snap his head off, so he let the apprentice go. The apprentice, who knew that one word from the mistress was worth a hundred orders from the master, withdrew to the hearth in the outer room, and waited till he should be called to dinner. "But what's the matter, Ghitza, you are not eating?" he heard his mistress saying. "Or are you waiting to be invited? Dear, dear, perhaps I ought to beg the gentleman to come to table!" The apprentice, accustomed to the mistress's ways, took a chair. But he had not swallowed three mouthfuls before the mistress bade him call in "that ne'er-do-well out there." Sandu shyly wished them good day, but of all those sitting round the table he only saw the master, and by his side the mistress, whose eyes seemed to scorch him and make him lose his presence of mind. "What is your name?" the master asked him. "I am called Sandu Boldurean." And in a low voice he told where he was born, with whom he had learnt the trade, and how long he had worked, but during the questioning he scarcely raised his eyelids. He grew confused at once when the mistress screamed at him: "But you'll ruin your hat turning it round like that in your hands. Put it down somewhere and speak up so that a man can understand what you are saying." Sandu felt the blood go to his head, and hardly knowing what he was doing he hung his hat on a bolt on the door. "And you worked only with one master?" "Only one. See, here is my work-book," and with some haste he drew out the handkerchief, unknotted it, and held out his "work-book" to the master. "Let me see too," said the mistress, snatching the book from her husband's hand. "After all, it's no wonder this idiot stayed in the same place; and who knows what kind of a master it was?" she whispered to her husband. He would have replied that it was a very good thing for a workman to have stayed so long with one master, for most tanners worked in the same way, and only here and there were the hides dressed differently; but he was ashamed to say so before the workman, and so he busied himself by looking through the book. Sandu broke into a sweat; when he held out the book he felt his soul was full of joy at having got so far, but little by little, especially when the mistress took the book and whispered to her husband, his heart seemed turned to ice.