Johannes slipped quietly downstairs and went to wash himself at the pump in the courtyard. About him all was cheerful activity--scrubbing and scouring, washing and rinsing. The summer morning was warm and yet fresh. It was a clear and sober world with nothing dreamy or fanciful about it. The bar-woman poured him out a cup of coffee, and asked in a familiar way if his roommate was still sleeping, and how Johannes had met him. "Oh, just by chance!" answered Johannes, blushing deeply; not only because he was fibbing, but because it was to himself such a delicate and obscure matter, and of such supreme importance. "Who is he, really?" he asked, with a feeling of committing treason. "Who is he!" re-echoed the mistress, in such a loud voice and with such emphasis that the other women stopped their work and looked up. "Did you hear him? He asks who Markus is!" "Do you mean Markus Vis?" asked a slatternly work-girl. "Yes, that's who he means!" said the bar-woman. The women looked at one another, and then went on again with their splashing and scrubbing. "I do not know anything _yet_," said Johannes, a little more boldly. "Neither do we," said the slovenly girl. "Do you, Bet?" "I know that he is a darn good fellow," answered Bet. "They do say, though, that he is not good," said another work-woman. "True, he _may_ not be good--but good he _is_, I say," retorted Bet. This sounded a bit obscure, but Johannes understood it perfectly well. "He has more sense than all four of you put together," said the bar-woman, indignantly. "I have seen, with my own eyes, how the little daughter of Sannes, the Plumber, who had been given up by as many as four doctors because there was not a ghost of a chance for her,--how she was taken by Markus on his lap, when all the phlegm came loose; and only yesterday, I saw her with her mother, running in front of the booths." "And the other day," said the slatternly girl, "when that tall Knelis at the vegetable market was drunk again--you know that common brawler with the white flap on his cap--well, he just took him gently by the wing, home to his old woman; and the fellow went along, as meek as a booby tied to his mother's apron-string." In this way, one story suggested another, and Johannes soon learned how much his Guide was liked and esteemed among performers, showmen, workmen, day-laborers--yes, even by the shopkeepers and tavern-keepers, although he was a poor customer. "What does he really do?" asked Johannes. "Don't you know that?" replied the mistress, astonished. "And yet I thought you were going to be his apprentice. He is a scissors-grinder. His cart stands here, in the shed." Johannes felt his heart thumping again, for he heard coming the very one of whom they were speaking. He scarcely dared to look at him. But the woman exclaimed: "Good morning, Markus! That's a sly-boots of yours--he doesn't even know what your work is!"