Now in Seldwyla there was a combmaking establishment the owner of which habitually changed every fifth or sixth year, and this although it did fair business when taken proper care of. For the small traders and stand-keepers who attended the fairs in the neighborhood, obtained there their horn wares. Beside the horn rasps and files, the implements of various kinds, the most marvelous ornaments and back-combs of every description for the use of the village belles and servant maids were made there out of handsome transparent ox horns, and the rare skill of the workmen (for, of course, the master never actually toiled himself) consisted in branding and searing the close counterfeit of the most artistically designed clouds of reddish brown tortoise shell, each according to his conceit and fancy, so that, when admiring these combs as the light played on their fantastic cumulations, it looked almost as though the most magnificent sunups and sundowns were concealed within the polished horn surface, rubicund gatherings of cloudlets, thunderstorms and tornadoes, as well as still other varicolored manifestations of the forces of Nature. In the summertime, when these proud artisans loved to wander over the surface of the land and when they were scarce, they were treated with courtesy by the masters, and received good board and wages. But during the winter, at a time when they were looking for shelter and were plentiful, they had to be humble, had to turn out combs till their very pates smoked with the effort, and all for slender pay. During that inauspicious season the mistress of the house one day after another would put a big dish of sourkrout on the table, and the master himself would then say: "These are fish!" And if at such a time any fellow was rash enough to remark: "With your permission, this is sourkrout!" he was instantly handed his walking papers and had to issue forth into the dreary winter landscape. However, as soon as the meadows once more turned green and the roads became passable, they all said: "All the same, it's sourkrout!" and made up their bundle. For even in case the mistress instantly threw a boiled ham on top of the smoking sourkrout, and the master would murmur: "Goodness, I thought all along it was fish! But this time, surely, it is a ham!" nevertheless the workmen were not to be propitiated any longer. They longed for freedom and the open, as during the long winter all three of them had had to sleep in one bed and had grown thoroughly tired of each other because of the continual kicking of ribs and because of frozen and numbed bare sides. But it so happened that once a decent and gentle soul came that way, from out of the Saxon lands, and this good fellow complied with everything, worked as hard as any ant and was absolutely not to be frozen out, in such fashion that finally he became so to speak a part of the furnishings of the house and saw the owners changing several