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. Hürlin'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, Hürlin 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 there'll be a little life in it--yes." "Say," asked Heller, "do you take your shirt off at night or keep it on?" "In summer I take it off." So Heller took his shirt off too, and lay down in the creaking bed. Soon he began to snore loudly. But Hürlin's curiosity was not yet exhausted. "Are you asleep, Heller?" "No." "There's plenty of time.... Tell me, you're a sailmaker, aren't you?" "I was--a master sailmaker." "And now--?" "And now--you must think a lot of me, to ask such silly questions." "Oh, you needn't be so snippy! You old fool, you may have been a master sailmaker, but that's not so much. I was a manufacturer--I owned a factory, do you understand?" "You needn't shout at me--I knew that before. And after that, what did you manufacture?" "What do you mean, after that?" "You know what I mean--in jail." Hürlin emitted a bleating laugh. "Oh, I suppose you're one of the pious kind--a psalm-singer, eh?" "I? That's the last thing! No, I'm not pious--but at the same time I've never been in jail." "You wouldn't have been at home there. Most of the people there are fine fellows." "O Lord! Fine fellows of your sort? You're right--I shouldn't have liked it." "Some people have got to talk, whether they know what they're talking about or not." "Just what I was thinking." "Oh, come now, be a good fellow! What made you give up the sailmaking?" "Oh, don't bother me! The business was all right, but the devil got into it somehow. It was my wife's fault." "Your wife? Did she drink?" "That would have been too much. No, I did all the drinking that was done, as is mostly the case, not the wife. But it was her fault just the same." "Was it? What did she do?" "Don't ask so many questions!" "Have you got any childen?" "One boy--in America." "Sensible fellow--a man's better off there."